


And It's Like the Fog Has Lifted

by Linsky



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Emotionally Abusive Parent, First Time, M/M, Mentions of Mental Illness, Patrick has magical princess powers, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2020-09-30 16:21:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20450021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linsky/pseuds/Linsky
Summary: “No, I mean.” Jonny can’t find words that are strong enough to say what he means. “You’re phenomenal. Like, insanely good. Are you playing somewhere?”Patrick looks away. “It’s complicated,” he says.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The Tangled AU is here! It's pretty loosely adapted. No need to have seen the movie. :D
> 
> if you are familiar with the movie, or with the Rapunzel story in general, you'll get what I mean when I say there's some stuff here that could potentially get very dark. I take roughly the Disney approach to it -- which is to say I take it seriously but don't explore the full extent of mental health ramifications that would probably result if this kind of thing where to happen in the real world. If this slight lightness of hand sounds like something that would bother you, be warned!
> 
> Additional warning for Jonny being mostly okay about (hypothetical) mental health stuff but maybe not the most thoroughly enlightened. Also, I'm real mean to Patrick's dad here. This is, of course, not based in reality.
> 
> (Psst also I messed with the 2009 All-Star Game schedule, shhhhh)
> 
> Many thanks to thundersquall and clayisforgirls, who were part of the conception of this story. <3
> 
> Hang with me on [Tumblr](https://linskywords.tumblr.com)!

There are a lot of people Jonny’s excited about playing with when he signs with the Blackhawks. Martin Havlat; Duncan Keith; Patrick Sharp. But if he’s honest with himself, the person he’s most excited about meeting is Tiki Kane.

He’s just such a legend. Undrafted, didn’t even merit a prospect ranking, no interest from scouts. Fizzled out after four years on the third line at Union and went to work at a car dealership. Then suddenly, at 27, bursts onto the scene, gets an amateur tryout with the Sabres, gets signed, goes on to score 81 points in 79 games. Repeats it the next year, 94 points in 81. 34 goals. And again the following year. After five years of playing on a beer league, almost ten years older than the draftees.

A lot of people called it a fluke, that first season. When he signed his five-year contract with the Sabres, a lot of people said it was a bad move, committing to a player that old without a proven track record. But they were wrong. He played half a dozen years with the Sabres, never scoring less than a point per game; another half-dozen with the Wild, barely losing the Art Ross to Jagr. Now another stretch with the Blackhawks, where he’s without a doubt the best guy on the bench.

The crazy thing is that he hasn’t slowed down. Jonny doesn’t know how he does it: the guy is 45 and still moving like he’s 18. Hell, still moving way better than he actually did at 18. Some fans on the internet have dug up tapes from some of his Union games, and there’s no comparison. It’s startling the way he improved, in a sport that’s supposed to wear you down slowly starting in your mid-twenties. People have done detailed analyses: the way he skates, the way he puck-handles, it’s all completely different than it was in his college years.

Not that Jonny’s obsessed or anything. He just admires him, is all. Figuring out how to make yourself that much better, how to keep yourself at that level for so long—that’s the kind of thing Jonny wants to learn for himself.

He’s even more excited when they get put on a line together at training camp. Jonny knows, from years of playing, how close you get to the guys on your line. He’s not gonna be weird about it or anything—but he can admit that, yeah, he’s looking forward to getting to know the great Tiki Kane.

It doesn’t quite go that way, though. Playing with Tiki is great: his style of play is easy to follow, meshes well with Jonny’s own. Every time Jonny tries to engage with him about it, though, get him to dissect plays and talk about strategy, he doesn’t get very far. Tiki’s nice enough—he’s friendly with all the guys—but he doesn’t really open up. Changes quietly in the locker room, goes home after games instead of going out, goes to mandatory team events but not much else.

That’s allowed. It’s not like he’s hurting the atmosphere in the room or anything. It’s just kind of a disappointment. He’s the best player on the team, and Jonny was hoping they could be friends.

As the year goes on, and Jonny establishes that he can hold his own here in the NHL, he stops caring so much. He makes other friends on the team: Seabs, who’s letting him rent his spare room, and Sharpy, who’s a total troll but also fun at least sixty percent of the time. Duncs, who’s the best D-man Jonny’s ever played with, and who _is_ willing to talk hockey, help figure out how he can be a better two-way player. Jonny’s starting to feel at home among these guys.

Then it’s his second year, and he becomes the youngest captain in the NHL, and it feels like a confirmation of all that. He’s in charge of the room now, and it’s his job to make sure things are running smoothly. And they are. They didn’t make the playoffs last year, but they’re a strong team, and Jonny’s going to help them get there this year. Tiki is a crucial part of that: their best goal-scorer, someone who’ll do well without needing a lot of hand-holding, and someone Jonny doesn’t have to spend a lot of time thinking about.

In fact, Jonny doesn’t know much about Tiki’s life at all. He knows he used to be married, that he got a divorce around a decade ago, that his wife got custody of their three daughters—he has no idea what Tiki does with his spare time these days.

That gets driven home one day in the fall of his second year, when Coach Q calls Jonny into his office after optional skate to ask him to drop something off with Tiki. “He lent it to one of the guys in the front office,” Q says, handing Jonny a tote. “I said I’d give it back to him, but he wasn’t at skate, and it’s too valuable to leave lying around. You’re close to him, right?”

Jonny’s not—but he’s also trying to build a good relationship with his new coach. “Sure, I mean, we’re on good terms. I can—”

“No, I don’t want to put you out,” Q says, running a hand over his mustache. “Is there one of the guys you think might see him before tomorrow?”

“I’m not sure,” Jonny says, realizing as he says it that it’s true. He’s never seen Tiki spend time with any of the guys in particular. “You can give it to me, though. I’ll get it to him.”

“If you’re sure,” Q says, giving him the bag. “I’ll let him know you’re bringing it by.”

Jonny has to text Stan to get Tiki’s address. He feels kind of dumb doing it, but at least Stan replies with it right away. It’s a pretty decent drive from the city, out past Lake Forest—at least an hour and a half round trip, and probably more like two with traffic.

Now he feels really dumb. He should have just let Q give it to someone else. But then he’d have looked like he wasn’t a team player, and anyway it’s too late now.

Traffic is even worse than Jonny expected, and it’s more like an hour and fifteen minutes before Jonny pulls up to Tiki’s drive. He actually passes it twice before he figures out where it is, because the house is set so far back from the street, and the gate doesn’t have the number marked on it. When he finally decides it has to be this place because there’s nowhere else, he pulls up to the gate and rings the buzzer.

And doesn’t get an answer.

Jonny swears and rings again. He should have checked that Tiki was home before driving all the way out here. He just assumed, because of the way Q told him to bring the package today; he didn’t think it through.

Also, to be fair, he didn’t expect the house to be like a mile back from the street, with a massive gate in front of it.

He could just leave the package at the gate. But if it’s so valuable Q didn’t want to leave it at the rink, Jonny definitely doesn’t want to leave it lying on the street.

Just out of curiosity, he lifts up the lip of the tote to see what’s inside. It’s something wrapped in brown paper. Jonny eases the tape on the paper open, just enough to look, and sees a puck in a glass frame. There’s a piece of tape in the frame with writing scrawled on it in black marker: _Stan Mikita. 500th Goal._

“Oh shit,” Jonny breathes. Yeah. He’s not leaving that on the street.

He opens up his phone to text Tiki to see if he’ll be coming back soon, and he notices that the text from Stan has a number after it. Jonny’d thought it was the ZIP code, but it’s six digits instead of five.

Well, if Stan gave him the gate code, it’s probably okay if he uses it, right?

He punches it into the pad on the gate lock and does a fist-pump when the little light goes green. The gate swings open, hinges grating, and Jonny drives in.

The driveway is long. Jonny can’t see the street at all by the time the house comes into view, this big solid Victorian construction that sprawls amid the trees. He parks in the circular drive and gets out to leave the package at the door.

He’s planning to leave it there and go. There’s a little covered porch area where it’ll be dry, and it’s not like anyone can steal it through the gate. But as he’s walking up to the gate, he hears a familiar thwack-whoosh sound that makes him stop.

He knows that sound. That’s the sound of a puck shooting across the ice.

There’s no rink visible. But if Tiki’s outside skating, that explains why he didn’t answer the bell. Jonny could at least give him the package himself instead of leaving it outside like it’s not Stan Mikita’s 500th goal puck.

He has to walk fully halfway around the house to find the rink, around a couple of fenced-in outbuildings. Jonny guesses being one of the top players in hockey for almost twenty years is pretty lucrative. He finally sees it: not just any rink, but a regulation-sized one, edged with boards, a goal at each end. Someone has his back to Jonny and is shooting into one of them.

At first Jonny thinks it’s Tiki. Like, obviously, who else would it be—but also, Jonny knows Tiki’s patterns of movement, and these are almost a perfect match. But something’s off. This guy is too small to be Tiki. And what Jonny assumed must be a hat or something isn’t: it’s the guy’s hair, a full head of blond curls..

The guy is intent on the goal in front of him. He has a whole bucket’s worth of pucks spread out on the ice in front of him. As Jonny watches, he takes one of the pucks, weaves it in and out among the others, and carries it out into the open and shoots. Goes back and finds a different puck and does it again. And again. And again.

It’s a masterful display. Jonny forgets that he has another reason to be here and gets lost in watching: the guy does move like Tiki, but the longer Jonny watches, the more the differences emerge. A stronger lean into the edges here. A tighter turning radius there. And the way the guy skates through the forest of the other pucks without letting his skates or his stick or the puck touch any of the others—Jonny doesn’t think Tiki could do that. He doesn’t think he himself could do that.

“Hey,” he calls out, after ten or twelve shots, and the guy jumps and drops his stick and spins around.

He seems to calm down when he sees Jonny. “Holy fuck,” he says, pressing a hand over his heart. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“Sorry.” Jonny does feel bad. He didn’t mean to startle him. “I was just—I was looking for Tiki.”

“He’s not here right now.” The guy skates closer to the boards. He’s young: probably not any older than Jonny himself. His cheeks are red from the cold. “Did you need something?”

“Just wanted to give him this.” Jonny holds up the bag.

“Oh, thanks, I’ll take it.” The guy takes the bag and puts it with his stuff on the bench built into the side of the rink. He doesn’t look a lot like Tiki close up, even if he moves like him on the ice. Maybe a nephew or cousin or something. Jonny doesn’t know much about Tiki’s family—just the ex-wife and the daughters, none of whom he’s met. He wants to know how this guy is related, but it seems rude to ask.

He shifts his weight a little, feeling dumb. He should leave now; he’s done what he came here for. Except—“You’re really good,” he says.

The guy looks up, real pleasure on his face. “Yeah? Thanks. You play?”

“Uh, yeah,” Jonny says. This guy must not spend a lot of time with Tiki—or maybe he’s not from Chicago. Maybe he’s European or something, though Jonny doesn’t hear an accent. 

“Great! You wanna play with me?” the guy asks. “It’s been ages since I’ve had a good game.”

Maybe he got injured or something, and is still recovering. “Yeah, sure,” Jonny says. His gear bag is still in his car from practice. “Let me go get my stuff.”

“Sweet.” The guy grins again. He sticks out a gloved hand to shake. “I’m Patrick.”

He has dimples, Jonny notices, and his eyes are very blue. “Jonny,” he says, and pulls his hand away a beat later than he should.

***

Patrick’s just as good as Jonny thought. Jonny was a little afraid he’d be good at puck handling but wouldn’t have broad hockey knowledge, but once they’re on the ice together they click just like Jonny and Tiki do.

No. Not just like Jonny and Tiki. That’s Jonny recognizing the similarities again and assuming they’re the same. Jonny and Tiki are good together; they have compatible styles of play. But playing with Patrick is _exciting._ He races up the ice and does things Jonny would never expect and makes him fight for every single point. Jonny’s way better at face-offs, but if Patrick gets the puck it’s almost impossible to take it off him. They have a rule where you can’t shoot if you’re beyond the first set of circles—the rink actually has hockey lines painted on it—and it results in the two of them chasing and jostling each other and fighting the puck and by the end of it Jonny is breathless and panting and elated.

“You’re ridiculous,” he says when they take a water break.

“Yeah, like you’re not just as obsessed yourself,” Patrick says, rolling his eyes.

“No, I mean.” Jonny can’t find words that are strong enough to say what he means. “You’re phenomenal. Like, insanely good. Are you playing somewhere?”

Patrick’s face shuts down instantly. “It’s complicated,” he says.

“Do you need help with anything?” Jonny knows that sometimes foreign guys have problems with visas—even though he still can’t hear an accent in Patrick’s voice. “I don’t know that I can be more help than Tiki can, but—”

“No.” Patrick turns away, tucks his water back in its thermal bag. “I’m good.”

“Because you should really be out there,” Jonny says. “I know you don’t know me, but I know what I’m talking about, and—”

“Come on, let’s play,” Patrick says, cutting him off and stepping back onto the ice.

Jonny follows Patrick onto the rink, a little thrown. He gets that sometimes there are reasons not to be in the NHL, but—well, actually, no, he doesn’t get that. If you’re good enough, if you’re healthy, why would you not want to play? And he’s seen enough of Patrick’s play to discount the injury thing. If he was ever recovering from a injury, he’s all the way back from it now. He’s better than anyone Jonny’s ever played with. He’s better than _Tiki._

Patrick’s a little slow getting started when they pick it up again, like some of the spirit has gone out of him, and Jonny briefly revisits the injury theory. But then they both get back into it. They change the rules so that you can only shoot if the puck is actually inside the goalie crease, which makes things more interesting but also gives Patrick a significant advantage. He scores three in a row on Jonny, and Jonny has to bite back his instinctive anger when Patrick does a celly, fist-pumping obnoxiously.

“Okay, but that’s not a real analogue to a hockey game,” Jonny says. “You almost never keep the puck to yourself in a zone entry like that.”

“What, never? Sounds like someone’s not up on his puck handling.”

Jonny grits his teeth. “Hey, I’m not saying dump the puck every time, but sometimes you have to, or you pass to a teammate, you’re gonna do better that way than if you try to—”

“Nope,” Patrick says. “Statistically, it’s way better to keep the puck than dump it.”

“Is _not,_” Jonny says. “And even if it is, every entry is gonna be different, you can’t use statistics to—”

Patrick rolls his eyes. “You can totally use statistics, that’s what they _mean._ If you do it that way you’ll have more success than—”

“But that’s not the way you play great hockey.” Jonny waves a hand, almost hits Patrick in the arm, because they’re practically toe-to-toe at this point. “The point is, you have to be able to judge from the situation, you have to—”

“Sure, if only people didn’t make the dumb decisions, dumping the puck because they’re afraid or whatever.”

“What do you even know about it, you’ve never played an NHL game in your life,” Jonny says, and—and something breaks in Patrick’s face, his expression falling, all the spark dying out.

“Yeah, you’re right, it’s whatever,” he mumbles, skating away. “Come on, let’s go again.”

_No, wait,_ Jonny wants to say. He didn’t mean to do that. Or maybe he did, because he wanted to win, but—it doesn’t feel good like this. He wants the other Patrick back, the one whose face was lit up, fighting with him about hockey. He doesn’t know how to walk it back, though.

“You ever try shooting for accuracy?” he says instead.

“Do I ever try shooting for accuracy,” Patrick says, scoffing, and Jonny breathes in relief.

They set up targets for themselves out of piles of hockey pucks and take turns trying to hit them at specific heights. It’s hard to say if one of them is better than the other—well, Patrick claims to be better, but he refuses to use Jonny’s scoring system and so it’s invalid.

They end up constructing this big castle-like structure of pucks that’s precarious enough that it should collapse if they take out two specific points. “Count of three,” Jonny says as they size it up from the other end of the rink. “One…two…”

Their pucks go sailing across the rink, and the whole castle falls, walls crumbling and pucks clattering to the ice. “Yes!” Patrick shouts, ripping off his gloves and pumping his fists in the air, and he turns to Jonny with his eyes so bright and Jonny feels something tumble inside him, like his own insides are as precarious as the hockey-puck castle.

“Fucking sweet,” he says, and he grabs Patrick’s hand—to raise it in victory, obviously, not because he wants to hold Patrick’s hand. But he doesn’t raise it right away, and so they are holding hands for a single protracted moment. Until Patrick pulls away, looking startled.

Fuck. “Sorry,” Jonny says. His hand feels hot, and he’s sure his cheeks are red. What did he have to do that for? If only he’d done the normal thing—

“Nah, it’s okay,” Patrick says. “It’s just, it’s getting kind of late. We should probably stop.”

Jonny feels like such an idiot as he takes off his gear. He fucked up and made everything awkward. And it was so good before; he’s never played with someone as good as Patrick. Never played with someone where they had as much natural chemistry on the ice.

This can’t be the last time they play together. Patrick’s too good for that.

“So, are you in town for a while?” Jonny asks when they have their skates off and are packing up.

“Yeah,” Patrick says. “Should be.”

“Maybe we can do this again sometime?”

Patrick hesitates.

Shit. Jonny did ruin things. He opens his mouth to apologize again, but Patrick cuts him off. “It’s not you. I’m just not sure…how much free time I’m gonna have.”

It’s pretty obviously a lie. Jonny can’t really hold it against him, though. “I could give you my number?” he says, pulling out his phone. “You can text me if—”

“Shit. Shit.” Patrick grabs at his phone. “Is that what time it is?”

“Uh, yeah. Why?”

“I need to go inside.” At first Jonny thinks he’s making an excuse to get rid of him, but then Patrick meets his eyes, and he looks actually upset. “Sorry. I just—I’m not supposed to tire myself out.”

“Okay.” Maybe Jonny was right the first time about the injury thing. Patrick still doesn’t seem injured, or even really tired, but maybe it’s something Jonny can’t see?

Patrick hovers on the front steps while Jonny loads his stuff back into his car, his eyes darting down the drive every minute or so. Jonny wants to say something, but he’s not sure what. He doesn’t want to make it _more_ awkward. “Thanks for having me,” he says finally. “I mean, for playing. You know.”

“No, thank _you_. I mean—” Patrick reaches out and grabs Jonny’s arm. Just his sleeve, really, but still. “Jonny,” he says, meeting his eyes. “Really. Thank you.”

Jonny nods, unable to find any words. Then Patrick lets him go, and Jonny stumbles toward the driver’s seat of his car with way less coordination than usual.

He’s five minutes down the road before he realizes he forgot to give Patrick his number. “Damn,” he says, slamming his hand against the steering wheel.


	2. Chapter 2

Jonny debates saying something to Tiki about it the next day. He doesn’t really want to—doesn’t want to seem like he’s prying into Tiki’s business, and also he’s not sure he won’t end up sounding like an idiot if he talks about it out loud—but the idea that Patrick might leave town without Jonny getting to see him again makes him panicked. He’ll just have to figure out a subtle way to bring it up.

It turns out he doesn’t have to, because Tiki brings it up after their practice the next day. It’s a good practice: Jonny feels extra on, like all his practice from the day before with Patrick has sharpened some essential part of himself. He finds himself deking like the puck is attached to his stick with a string, so much less effort involved than usual. He’s still flying high on it when Tiki pulls him aside in the changing room.

“Hey, thanks for driving out to my place yesterday,” Tiki says. “That puck means a lot to me.”

“Yeah, of course,” Jonny says, his heart rate jolting up at the reminder of yesterday. They’re not really talking about Patrick—but. Close enough.

“I hear you might have met my son,” Tiki says.

Now Jonny’s heart rate really zooms. “Your son?” he repeats. It hadn’t occurred to him that that was who Patrick might be. He thought Tiki just had daughters. But it’s not like he paid a lot of attention to the divorce back in the ’90s.

“Yeah, he’s staying with me for a while,” Tiki says. “He has some problems—mental health, that kind of thing. It’s good for him to keep out of the public eye.”

That might answer some of Jonny’s questions about why Patrick isn’t rocking the NHL. He wonders what the problems are. “Uh, yeah, I ran into him. Seems like he’s doing pretty good?” he adds.

Tiki nods. “He’s a good kid. He’s getting it together. But—uh, it’s better for him not to have too many disturbing influences in his life. Better for him to have the space he needs to recover, you know?”

“Oh. Sure.” Not Jonny’s feeling both glad and guilty that he downplayed their interaction a moment ago. “I hope I didn’t make anything worse.”

“Nah, I’m sure he’ll be okay. Just, it would be better if you didn’t try to get in contact with him again.”

“Sure.” Jonny’s pretty sure his cheeks are coloring, like Tiki can read how much Jonny wants to do just that. “Got it. I, uh, I hope he does well. With the recovery and everything.”

“Thanks. That means a lot.” Tiki claps him on the back before moving off and leaving Jonny to sort through the turmoil of his feelings.

He wants not to believe it. But it’s pretty obvious where that’s coming from. He wants to believe Patrick’s fine because it would mean Jonny could contact him again. But Jonny’s known Patrick for twenty-four hours, and his dad’s known him his whole life. His dad wouldn’t say Patrick had mental health problems if it weren’t true.

The thing is…it didn’t _seem_ true. Patrick didn’t seem like he was troubled or anything. Jonny gets that mental illness looks like lots of different things. But if it’s so bad for Patrick to interact with people, why was he able to interact so normally with Jonny for hours?

He did act weird when Jonny asked him questions about himself. Maybe that was worse for him than Jonny realized. But if that’s the problem, Jonny could definitely promise not to ask any more questions, as long as Tiki would let him—

He cuts off that line of thought. It’s not his place to be telling Tiki what to do with his son.

It’s just…Patrick was _so good._ The way he grabbed the puck straight off Jonny’s stick, sped toward the other end, weaving through the cones they’d put up so fast Jonny could barely catch him—the way he looked skating backward, taunting Jonny, his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth, his eyes lit up by the winter sun—Jonny can’t imagine never seeing that again. Can’t imagine never playing with him again. It’s a fucking tragedy that Patrick’s not in the NHL.

Maybe…maybe he’ll get better someday, and things will change. Jonny can hold onto that.

He does his best to put the whole thing out of his mind. They have a game the next night, where they shut out the Sens and squeak in one goal of their own to get the W. Jonny feels like he plays pretty well, even if the high he was on after playing with Patrick has mostly gone away. He’s pretty sure his puck-handling skills are back to where they usually are. Which is another reason to see Patrick again: he wants to find a way to make the magic stay, make it part of his everyday game. But that’s not the kind of thought he should be having.

He goes out with the guys afterward and picks up. That’s not something he does all that often during the season: he likes to save his energy for the game. But right now he feels like he needs something to get him out of his head.

Hailey is hot, wearing tight jeans that show off a spectacular ass, and she’s fun to dance with, grinning and pulling Jonny’s hips towards her. It’s easy for Jonny to tell himself that what caught his eye wasn’t her blond hair, tumbling in curls down her back.

It’s a good night. So Jonny’s not sure why, when he’s lying in bed afterward, Hailey asleep a couple of feet away, he feels so hollow. Like there’s an ache in his gut that he was able to ignore during the game and the dancing and the sex but which never really went away.

It’s just a blip. He needs to wait it out, is all.

He does wait it out, as the season winds on through December and they travel to Colorado and then do a swing through Canada. They’re on a winning streak, going nine straight games before Christmas without losing in regulation. They have five days free for the holidays, just optional practices, so that the team can go be with their families for Christmas. Jonny’s parents are coming into town with David, but they’re not getting there until the 23rd. Jonny’s looking forward to having a couple of days to get his life back in order before the holiday craziness starts.

His plans for his first day off are thrown into disarray when he wakes up to a text from Tiki.

Or, from Tiki’s number, anyway. The first text disputes that it’s from Tiki. _hey, its patrick,_ it says. Then, _dont text me back or anyth, but if you want to play some more come over between noon and 6_

Jonny frowns at the phone. This is _super_ weird.

His first thought is that maybe he should tell Tiki. Well, no: his first thought is, yes, he _does_ want to play some more. But right on the heels of that is the thought that this is the kind of thing he should really, in good conscience, tell Tiki about. Tiki told him it would be better for Patrick not to be in touch with him, and here Patrick is—apparently—going behind his dad’s back to text Jonny to tell him to come over when, he has to assume, Tiki won’t be home?

So probably he should tell Tiki. But he doesn’t want to. He wants to play with Patrick again. And—and there’s a part of him that feels like it would be a betrayal, to tell Tiki. Patrick’s not a little kid, after all. He didn’t seem dangerously out of it or anything when Jonny met him. It’s probably okay not to tell his dad about something as low-key as texting another adult an invitation to play hockey.

Jonny doesn’t tell Tiki. He also doesn’t text back, even though he really wants to. It feels weird, having a message from Patrick on his phone, and just…not being able to respond to it. But he doesn’t. Instead he runs a couple of errands and calls his meal service to confirm the holiday deliveries and then he puts his gear into his car and drives out to Lake Forest.

He times it so that he arrives around 12:30. He rings at the gate, even though he doesn’t really expect an answer. The gate code is the same as it was two weeks ago, though. Jonny lets himself in and drives to the end of the driveway, takes his gear, and treks around the house.

Patrick’s on the rink again, shooting into the empty goal. This time he must be listening for Jonny, because he turns, and his face breaks into a smile. “You came!”

“Yeah, of course.” Jonny’s ears feel weirdly hot. “I mean, I would have texted, but—”

“No, obviously,” Patrick says. “Come on, get geared up.”

Jonny keeps sneaking glances at Patrick’s face while he laces up his skates. He seems normal. Not that Jonny could necessarily tell, but…it’s just weird looking at Patrick and thinking, there’s this huge thing he’s suffering from, or recovering from, that Jonny can’t even guess at. He keeps looking, at the blueness of Patrick’s eyes, the cold-air flush on his cheeks.

“So, uh,” Jonny says, even though he’s not sure if this is a smart idea. He doesn’t want to bring up stuff that’s weird for Patrick. But he’d feel guilty if he didn’t bring it up at all. “Are you sure it’s okay for us to be doing this? Your dad said—”

Patrick jerks his head up. “He talked to you about me?”

“Not a lot,” Jonny says. “He just said—you know. That maybe we shouldn’t hang out.”

Patrick looks away. “He’s just really protective,” he says. “This will be fine.”

“Okay,” Jonny says slowly. He feels like he’s still missing a few big pieces of the picture, but he’ll trust Patrick on that. “If you’re sure—”

“Yeah.” Patrick turns his grin on Jonny again, the one that brings out his dimples. “Come on, let’s skate.”

It’s just as startling as before. Jonny skates almost every day with some of the best skaters in the world, but he feels like he never knew how good it could be before this. Or maybe he’s remembering what it was like from childhood, when it was just a thrill and not a job. Patrick takes everything seriously—he’s not goofing off or anything—but there’s this joy in everything he does that’s so obvious. Jonny feels it infecting him as they skate.

They set up a more elaborate obstacle course this time, using cones to slow themselves down and give each other chances to steal the puck away. It’s tough, getting the pucks through the course, fending off Patrick—tougher than Jonny usually has to work in a practice. It’s probably silly for him to be working this hard on a day off, but he wouldn’t trade it. Not for anything

They stop after a couple of hours, and Jonny thinks Patrick’s going to tell him to go home, but instead he invites him in to hydrate and eat.

Jonny tries not to stare too much when they’re inside the house. It looks normal: big kitchen, remodeled in the last decade or so. It could be any of his teammates’ houses.

“So do you live here with your dad?” he asks, peering into the living room. It all looks really tidy.

“What?” Patrick’s in the kitchen, getting out some food. “Oh, yeah.”

“You must learn a lot from him,” Jonny says. “I mean, he’s a great player.”

“Yeah, I mean, some.”

“Do you get to see the rest of your family a lot?” Jonny asks. He’s not sure where he’s going with this; there are just so many holes in his knowledge. “You have sisters, right?”

“That’s right,” Patrick says.

“I guess it must be tough with the divorce,” Jonny prompts, when it doesn’t seem like Patrick’s going to add anything else. “I mean, the distance, and your dad’s career—”

He notices suddenly that Patrick’s shrinking in on himself, his shoulders drawing up around his neck. “Sorry,” Jonny says in a quieter voice. “That was—I shouldn’t ask about that stuff.”

“No, it’s okay,” Patrick says, though it doesn’t sound like it was. “I just—I don’t talk to that many people, you know?”

“Sure,” Jonny says, though he doesn’t know. What does not that many people mean? He wants to know, but he doesn’t want to ask more questions that might make Patrick tense up again. “Do you, uh, want to talk about it?”

“Not really,” Patrick says.

“Okay.” Jonny can’t decide if he’s relieved or disappointed. He doesn’t love talking about feelings, but. “So who do you think is in Cup contention this year?”

Patrick shoots him a fleeting grin. “How much are you just trying to get me to say you guys?”

“Like fifty percent,” Jonny admits. Patrick’s shoulders have gone down. Jonny has a fleeting urge to put his hands on them, get them to relax more, but he brushes it aside.

***

Patrick doesn’t hurry Jonny out this time. But Jonny remembers what Patrick said about noon to six, and this time when it’s getting to be five o’clock, Jonny says, “Hey, it’s getting kind of late. I should probably head out soon.”

He’s half hoping Patrick will argue with him, tell him to stay. But Patrick just says, “Yeah, you stick around, I’ll just have to score on you some more.”

“You wish,” Jonny says, even though it’s true. The precision game they’ve been playing, Patrick definitely has the edge. “Let’s do some face-offs, we’ll see who ends up scoring on who.”

“Next time,” Patrick says, and Jonny has to look away to hide the dumb hopeful thing his face is probably doing.

There’s another weird moment while they’re saying goodbye. Jonny holds out his hand for a bro hug—the normal way this time, the way he would say goodbye to any of his friends—and Patrick looks away quickly, like he’s distracted by something and didn’t see Jonny’s hand, but Jonny knows he did. He just doesn’t want to take it.

Jonny pulls his hand away immediately, steps back awkwardly. He wishes there were a way to pretend he never held it out, but it’s too late for that. He didn’t realize—Patrick still feels weird about the thing last time. Of course he does. It was weird.

“Uh,” he says, scratching his neck. “Do you have email?”

“It’s 2008,” Patrick says. “Everyone has email.”

Jonny doesn’t mention that he’s learning not to make any assumptions with Patrick. “Here,” he says, holding out the scrap of paper he had in his jeans pocket, the one he wrote out this morning with his email and cell number. “Sorry about—I mean, hopefully you can read the handwriting.”

“Hey,” Patrick says, taking the paper with a real smile. It brightens his whole face. “Thanks.”

Jonny looks away again. “So—let me know if you want to do it again.”

“I will,” Patrick says, and Jonny leaves feeling like he really means it.

He’s in a good mood the next few days, hanging out with his family. “Seriously, there’s something up with you,” his mom says to him in French the second night, when Jonny’s spent most of the dinner making them laugh with some story about the rink. “I haven’t seen you this happy since the draft.”

“I’m always happy,” Jonny says.

“He’s getting laid,” David says knowingly.

“David,” their dad scolds while Jonny shoves David’s face away. He gets laid plenty.

“If there is someone special, you know you could tell us,” his mom says.

Jonny shakes his head. It’s not like that. He’s just really happy right now, is all.

He doesn’t hear from Patrick before Christmas. He makes himself check his email only a few times a day, because otherwise he’d be refreshing it every other minute, seeing if anything’s there. But it’s Christmas. Patrick’s probably busy with whatever he and his dad do to celebrate. He’ll write eventually.

Jonny’s a little worried that Tiki will bring something up at their game on the twenty-sixth. He doesn’t think Patrick will tell him—it seemed like Patrick wanted to keep it a secret—but what if Tiki found out somehow?

Tiki doesn’t say anything. Which is good. But it also leaves Jonny weirdly frustrated. It’s been five days, and he wants to hear _something_ about Patrick. What if the silence means Patrick’s not okay?

Patrick’s probably okay. Jonny just needs to be patient and pour his frustration into the game. He plays well enough—that extra edge he got after his first practice with Patrick hasn’t come back, but he feels solid, on top of his skates. They win against the Flyers, tying the franchise record for win streaks, and then they go to Minnesota two days later and break it.

Jonny is ecstatic—the whole team is. This is their season. It’s all finally coming together. This year they’re going all the way.

He takes some time before the team goes out to text his people. His parents, David, T.J., his other friends from school, everyone who’s reaching out to congratulate him. He wants to text everyone he knows. He wants to text—

He’s only seen Patrick two times. He shouldn’t even _want_ to text him. But he wants to know what Patrick’s face would do when Jonny told him the news.

The team goes out, and Jonny drags back to the hotel a couple of hours later, a little tipsy but not drunk. He’s ready to crash, but he opens his laptop to check his email—he just wants to know.

Nothing new except for some junk mail. Jonny trashes it, and he’s about to exit when he sees a weird alert in his gchat window. _pkane88 wants to chat,_ it says, with little yes/no buttons.

Jonny’s heart leaps into his throat. He clicks on _yes_ as fast as he’s ever done anything in his life.

A little gchat window pops up. There’s an alert at the bottom that says, _pkane88 is typing…_ Then words pop up in the window: _hey, loser_

Jonny laughs out loud. _i can’t believe some stranger found this email and is using it to insult me,_ he sends.

_maybe i've just seen u play,_ Patrick sends back. Because it’s definitely Patrick. Jonny has no doubts now.

_so did you just chat me to insult me or_

_well,_ Patrick sends back. _i heard u guys might have something to celebrate tonight_

Jonny grins. He kinds of wants to do something ridiculous, like put the computer down and roll around the bed, laughing, but—but that would be dumb. _yeah turns out we’re pretty good,_ he says.

_or at least the other guys suck more_

_excuse you. we do not suck at all_

_that’s not what ur girl said last night_

_wtf??_

_hey if u wanted my jokes to make sense ur chatting with the wrong guy_

Jonny’s grinning so hard his cheeks hurt. He presses his face into the pillow and groans a little. This is going to be great.


	3. Chapter 3

Patrick’s on gchat at unpredictable times over the next few weeks. Jonny manages to catch him a lot—mostly by checking his computer every five minutes anytime he’s not actively involved with team stuff. Whatever. It’s not that weird.

He learns a lot about Patrick. He learns that he has an even better grasp of stats than Jonny thought. Maybe he’s googling them as he goes—but still, no one should know where to find so many numbers so quickly. Patrick’s just super good at this.

He even knows all Jonny’s stats. Jonny’s surprised by that, since Patrick didn’t seem to know who he was when he first showed up at the Kane property, but he finally puts it together: Patrick watches a lot of hockey—like, he seems to have watched _all_ the hockey—but he doesn’t watch the Hawks.

Jonny’s first clue comes after they break their win streak against the Red Wings. Patrick’s sympathetic, but he doesn’t say anything about the Hawks’ play, the way he automatically says things about other teams’ play when specific games come up. Jonny spends a while thinking that means Patrick just didn’t have anything good to say about their play and didn’t want to insult him. But then they lose against the Red Wings again two days later, at the Winter Classic, and Jonny’s griping about this thing where Datsyuk hit him with a questionable check—_i mean, i don’t know how it looked on tv, but it was super borderline,_ he says, and Patrick just—doesn’t say anything.

Jonny thinks he’s been called away from his keyboard. But then, a minute later, _i don’t know, sounds like someone’s making excuses._

_i do not make excuses,_ Jonny says, even though he pretty much is right now. But he didn’t miss the thing where Patrick didn’t even engage about how the check looked, and now that the idea’s occurred to him Jonny wants to test it.

_it was still a great game, tho,_ he says. _we thought the wind might be bad but it wasn’t at all. how did it look on tv?_

There’s another pause, shorter this time. _looked like u guys were having fun,_ Patrick says, which is sort of an answer, except that Patrick always has opinions on things, and if he doesn’t have an opinion on hockey being played on Wrigley Field, something is wrong.

Jonny doesn’t push it. He already feels kind of bad for trying to trick the info out of Patrick in the first place. He wonders, though, if some of the weird stuff that’s going on with Patrick has to do with the Blackhawks. Like—maybe he was supposed to play for them, but couldn’t?

Patrick doesn’t volunteer info easily about himself. If Jonny brings up something about himself, Patrick will engage with it, seem like he wants to know more, but he never really reciprocates. Jonny feels like a detective or something. He has to glean info from the little comments, hoarding it greedily. Patrick hates broccoli. He gets cold really easily, even though he grew up in the north—in Buffalo and Minnesota and Chicago, he confirms, once Jonny guesses. He’s never been to Canada, which maybe shouldn’t surprise Jonny but does. Jonny crosses the border so often it feels like an everyday occurrence.

_i mean it’s pretty much just glaciers up there so i don’t think i'm missing anything,_ Patrick says.

_you take that back,_ Jonny says.

_sorry i forgot about those five trees u guys also have,_ Patrick says. _too bad they’re all maples_

He’s so obnoxious. He has wrong opinions about everything, from Canada to the importance of playing defensively. Jonny’s never been happier.

He feels kind of guilty every time he sees Tiki. Yeah, Patrick’s a grownup—20, he says when Jonny finally asks, just wanting to make absolutely sure—but Tiki’s Jonny’s teammate. Jonny can’t shake the feeling that he’s betraying him a little by having this secret friendship with his adult son.

Not guilty enough to say no the next time Patrick invites him over, though. It’s a couple weeks into the new year, and they have day off between home games. Patrick gchats him in the morning, telling him to come over anytime after ten, and Jonny’s out the door almost before he remembers to say yes.

It’s only been three weeks since Jonny’s seen Patrick. It feels like more, when he’s in the car on the way there. His stomach is fizzing, his fingers tapping on the steering wheel. There isn’t actually any point to speeding—at the rate he’s going, he’ll only just get there after ten as it is—but he wants to, anyway.

He maybe does speed a little, because he gets to Patrick’s street at 9:50. He has to do a big loop around part of the town so that he comes back a little after ten. He puts in the gate code, goes down the driveway, and gets out to see Patrick on the rink, and his whole stomach flips over.

It’s just—it’s Patrick. Jonny’s so happy to see him.

They play together, and it’s so good. Even better than the last two times, when they hadn’t really talked much yet. Now Jonny feels like he knows Patrick, like the ease of their gchat conversations translates into real life.

With one exception. Every time Jonny comes too close to Patrick while they’re not playing—especially when they’re in the house after, warming up—Patrick moves away.

It’s subtle. Jonny’s not sure he’s not imagining it. Maybe Patrick just has a bigger-than-usual personal bubble. Or maybe it’s part of whatever Tiki was talking about—not wanting to be too close to people. But Jonny can’t help feeling that it’s about him. That Patrick is still weirded out about that thing from that first day, and now he wants to play with Jonny and he wants to talk to him but he doesn’t quite trust him.

That’s…that’s okay. Hockey and conversation are what Jonny wants from Patrick. He doesn’t _want_ to touch him, really. But still, every time he gets closer and Patrick gets farther away, it sends a little thud of hurt through his chest.

It’s not enough to make him feel bad about things overall. Patrick still meets his eyes, and gets in his face arguing about hockey, and has a gorgeous slapshot, and Jonny grins at his windshield the whole way home.

They beat the Sabres the next day, Jonny getting the game-winning goal. He does feel like the practice with Patrick is maybe helping his game, even if it’s not a dramatic difference the way it was after that first day. The law of diminishing returns, maybe.

Afterward, he goes out with the guys and some of the WAGs, most of whom are cooler than the guys themselves. Jonny’s having a great time with them when Abby, Sharpy’s girlfriend, says, “We should hook you up.”

Sharpy asks, putting an arm around her shoulders. “Yeah? You gonna wingman him?”

“Better than you could,” she says, and all the guys ooh at the challenge.

“Hey, we’re definitely better wingwomen than you hockey fools are,” Dayna, Seabs’ girlfriend, says. “You see anybody you like?” she asks Jonny.

Jonny gives a cursory look around the bar. “Nah, I’m good.”

“Wait, really? Not even the girl in the sequins by the bar?” Abby asks.

Sharpy grins. “My girlfriend, everyone.”

Jonny looks. The girl is hot and all, he’s just…not feeling it. “Nah. But, you know, if you and Sharpy want her.”

Abby purses her lips like she’s considering it, and there’s another round of oohs.

“Very generous,” Sharpy says to Jonny. “But you can’t fool me.” He leans in. “You’ve got something going on, don’t you?”

Jonny scoffs. “You make it sound like I’m part of a conspiracy or something.”

“Secret underworld girlfriend,” Seabs agrees.

“Come on, you can tell me,” Sharpy says. “Tell Uncle Sharpy.”

“Never call yourself that again,” Abby says.

“No, I’m just not feeling it,” Jonny says.

Abby laughs and jerks a thumb at Sharpy. “I wish this guy would say that sometimes.”

“Hey now,” Sharpy says to her. “He’s not lucky enough to have someone like you around. I don’t want to seem ungrateful.”

“Maybe he’s the one you guys should take home tonight,” Dayna says, nodding her head at Jonny.

“No fucking way,” Jonny says while Abby laughs.

Sharpy pretends to think it over. “I don’t know, I mean, he did score the game winner tonight.” He poses for Jonny, tapping his fingers against his lips. “What do you think, Toes, you wanna kiss this mouth?”

“You wish,” Jonny says. If he’s going to be kissing any guy, it’s gonna be—

Huh.

***

He doesn’t think about it all that much. Just because he likes Patrick more than the guys on his team, that doesn’t mean there’s anything else going on. He’s allowed to have outside friends. But it’s in the back of his mind when Patrick invites him over again a few days later.

The way his stomach leaps and his whole system electrifies when he sees Patrick—that’s a friendship thing. There were definitely guys in high school and college that Jonny felt that way about. Patrick’s mouth is kind of distracting, yeah, but just because he’s always doing something with it. Biting his lips, darting his tongue out, leaving his bottom lip pink and shiny—

Jonny tears his eyes away.

It’s extra cold out today. Patrick invites Jonny in after they’ve been playing for a while, like he usually does, and convinces him that it’s a good idea to have hot chocolate. “We need to warm up,” Patrick says.

“Hot chocolate doesn’t warm you up any better than any other hot liquid,” Jonny says.

“Sure it does. Power of tradition,” Patrick says, getting the Ghirardelli out of the pantry. “Didn’t your mom ever make you hot chocolate when you came in from hockey?”

_Did yours?_ Jonny wants to ask. But he knows better than to ask personal questions at this point.

He still thinks the sugar is a bad idea. But Patrick actually bats his eyelashes at him, and he looks ridiculous, obviously, but also it’s his home, and it seems to mean a lot to him, and okay, fine, they can have hot chocolate as long as it’s made with water.

“Excellent. I’m putting in marshmallows,” Patrick says.

He makes them each a mug, and they sit at the table, breathing in steam. Jonny feels extra aware of exactly where Patrick is. It’s just so different, being off the ice, no pads and no sticks. Just the two of them. Not that Jonny expects anything to happen. It’s just—different, is all.

Patrick takes a sip of the hot chocolate. “Oh, fuck, that’s hot,” he says, sucking in air and sticking his tongue out to cool it.

Jonny’s eyes snag on the little pink tip of tongue sticking out between Patrick’s lips. He wonders what it would feel like if he touched it with his own. Would Patrick’s mouth taste like chocolate? His whole belly feels hot, like he’s the one who took a drink.

“Well?” Patrick asks. “Aren’t you going to drink yours?”

It’s hard to talk around a tongue that suddenly feels too big for his mouth. “You just said it was too hot.”

“Yeah, but that’s the fun,” Patrick says. “Sometimes you gotta do something even when it’s gonna hurt, right?”

That’s dumb, but Jonny can’t exactly argue with it. He feels like maybe that’s what he’s doing already.

***

That night he lets himself imagine what would have happened if he’d leaned over and kissed Patrick’s chocolate-heated mouth. In his imagination, Patrick doesn’t shy away from his touch like he does every time Jonny goes near him in reality. In his mind, Patrick opens his mouth and kisses back, and then lets Jonny lean him back along the bench in breakfast nook, their bodies catching friction from each other until Patrick is red-cheeked and open-mouthed and gasping, and in his bedroom at home Jonny arches his back and comes all over his hand.

It’s just one of the things you think about when you jerk off sometimes. Jonny’s not going to worry about it.

He does start to worry more about the mystery around Patrick, as January draws to a close. There are just so many pieces that don’t add up. What _is_ the weirdness that Tiki alluded to in December, that’s so bad it means Patrick should be not just out of the public eye, but not even friends with Jonny? And there’s other stuff, too: Patrick says one day how much he hates summer, because there’s no skating. Jonny points out that he could always go skate at an indoor rink, and Patrick changes the subject so obviously that Jonny thinks maybe indoor rinks aren’t a thing he can do. But he seems so normal around Jonny; and surely his NHL dad would be able to rent a rink out so that he could skate alone for an hour, if he wanted to?

And what is so seriously wrong that it keeps Patrick out of the NHL?

Because he absolutely belongs there. That gets clearer to Jonny every time they play. They can’t simulate a real game with two people, but Jonny’s done enough drills with enough different players to have a sense of the range of skills out there. Patrick’s near the top of the range in basically everything. And it’s not like his hockey knowledge is lacking, or like he doesn’t care. There must be something big keeping him from going pro, and Jonny has no idea what it is.

The Hawks are leaving for a ten-day road trip at the end of January. Jonny’s hoping he’ll get to see Patrick again before they leave. He doesn’t want to ask about it—that seems like it would be weirdly desperate, and Patrick’s set all the terms of their getting together so far. But the night before they fly to California, Patrick emails around dinnertime to see if Jonny wants to come over.

Patrick’s never invited him over him late like that. Jonny’s mind automatically leaps to—but no, Patrick probably just has an evening free, and he wants Jonny to hang out.

Or, more accurately, Tiki has a night out of the house. Jonny’s been trying not to think too hard about how all the times Patrick invites him over are when Tiki isn’t home. That’s Patrick’s choice; Jonny doesn’t need to worry about it.

Tiki’s not there again when Jonny gets there. Patrick actually buzzes him in at the gate, and when Jonny gets to the house, Patrick answers the door in a t-shirt and sweats. The t-shirt is tight-ish, pulled over Patrick’s shoulders, and Jonny’s mouth goes dry and it takes him a minute to return Patrick’s greeting.

They order sushi, and Jonny pays—“You don’t have to do that,” Patrick says, thought Jonny notices that he looks kind of relieved when Jonny insists—and they put on a classic Oilers/Habs game, from back when Gretzky was still in Edmonton. Jonny should maybe be sick of dissecting games after the amount of game tape he has to go through on a weekly basis, but it’s not something he ever gets enough of. And it’s better with Patrick than with anyone else he knows. There’s so much Patrick sees; Jonny thinks, once again, how much the hockey world is missing out on, not having him on the ice.

They’re lying on separate couches, in a V with their heads near each other. When Jonny turns his head he can see Patrick’s curls and his shirt stretched over the flatness of his belly and the breadth of his thighs in the soft sweats. He tries not to turn his head and look too often.

They finish the game, and Patrick gets up. Jonny tenses a little, not wanting things to be over, but Patrick’s just going to pick another one from the broad wall of old game tape. “What do you think, Blackhawks/Bruins?” Patrick asks.

That’s surprising. It’s become very clear to Jonny over the past month that he was right about Patrick never watching Hawks games. “Sure,” he says slowly.

It turns out to be an old game, from back in the ’70s. That leads to interesting questions: maybe it’s only painful to Patrick to watch the current Blackhawks? 

Jonny knows he shouldn’t ask. But they’ve been talking so much. Jonny feels like maybe…maybe he could bring it up again. If the moment was right.

He waits until the second game is over. Then they’re lying in silence in the dark house, the only light the blue screen of the TV, and Jonny breathes in deep and thinks, here goes.

“I know you don’t—I mean, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want,” he says. “But you really—you _really_ belong in the NHL. I’m not just saying that. You’re amazing. I’ve never—I’ve never played with anyone like you. It’s a tragedy that you’re not out there.”

There’s a long silence, in which Jonny thinks he ruined things; he went too far. Then he hears Patrick sigh. “It’s too risky,” he says finally, his voice quiet.

Risky. Jonny lets that sit for a few heartbeats, listens to the ticking of a clock over on the bookshelves. He knows that hockey is a dangerous sport. Not more dangerous than a lot of other sports, but not safe, either. But Patrick’s never played like someone who’s worried about getting hurt. “Is it risky playing with me?”

“Yes,” Patrick says plainly. Like there’s no doubt about it.

That hurts. Jonny’s not sure why it does; it’s not like it keeps Patrick from playing with him. “So,” he says, “why do you—”

“I don’t know,” Patrick says. He turns his head so that Jonny can see his face, just barely visible in the blue light from the screen. “I should probably stop doing it. But,” he says, meeting Jonny’s eyes, after a brief moment in which Jonny tastes panic, “I’m not going to.”

Jonny holds his breath for a moment, while he fights down the urge to do something indescribably stupid, like reach over to the other couch for a touch he knows Patrick doesn’t want to give. He has to swallow a few times before he feels like the pressure of it is something he can bear. “Good,” he says finally.

Patrick smiles at him faintly, and Jonny holds his eyes for a good thirty seconds before he has to look away, fighting for air and for sanity.


	4. Chapter 4

The Hawks go on their road trip and pick up eight out of twelve points. They play pretty well except for the last game, which is pretty much a shitshow: Jonny’s line can’t get anything done, and halfway through the second period Q swaps Tiki out for Steeger. He sends Tiki down to the fourth line, slashing his minutes.

It’s pretty noticeable. The media ask a lot of questions about it afterward, obviously wanting to know if something’s going on with Tiki, even if they don’t come out and say it.

“We’ve got a strong first line,” Jonny says. “But sometimes, you need to change it up, tweak things for the way a given game is going. Q is good at being adaptable like that. It’s not a statement about any individual player.”

That’s what he says to the press. But privately, he does think Tiki was holding them back. He wasn’t playing the way he usually does. Jonny doesn’t think it means age is catching up with him—age doesn’t catch up with you in a single weekend after almost twenty years of consistently excellent play—but he does wonder what’s behind it. He wonders if maybe Tiki got some bad news or something. He wonders—he wonders if Patrick’s okay.

It’s a ridiculous thing to wonder. There are all sorts of things that are more likely to throw Tiki off his game. But Jonny hasn’t talked to Patrick online since last night. And the team is flying back to Chicago tonight, so Jonny won’t have a chance to talk to him again until tomorrow.

He’s still feeling the edge of worry when he gets on the team bus to the airport, even though he knows it’s probably nothing. It’s almost definitely nothing. But Tiki is right there in front of him, filing onto the bus two people up. Jonny could just ask him.

Jonny should definitely not ask him.

He’s not going to ask him. But then Tiki stops in front of him, putting his bag up on the rack before he slides into the seat, and Jonny says, “Hey,” before he can stop himself. Tiki looks up, surprised, and Jonny bites back a wince at himself. “Everything good?”

There’s a moment’s pause. Then Tiki grins, a little sheepish. “Yeah, just one of those nights, you know?”

It doesn’t sound like Tiki’s dealing with trouble at home. But maybe he wouldn’t say. “Sure,” Jonny says. “It happens.”

He sits on his hands the whole flight. When he gets home, it’s like three in the morning, and he should just go to bed. But instead he opens his computer to see if there’s anything from Patrick.

Nothing. That’s not too unusual; Patrick doesn’t always say a lot when Jonny’s not around. Jonny’s not sure if he should say anything. He doesn’t want to make it seem like he’s worried. And he probably won’t get a response anyway—Patrick’s not online—and will it really make him feel better to shout into the void at three a.m.?

He stares at the screen for way too long, considering that his eyes are already gritty, and finally types out, _fuck road trips are long. just got back literally now. gonna sleep for like twelve hours_

It’s not the world’s most eloquent statement. But Jonny can’t come up with anything better. He sends it and falls asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow.

He wakes up when the sun is high in the sky. He reaches for his computer before he does anything else.

Patrick’s responded. _whatever happened to good sleep hygene and always waking up at the same time? tsk tsk toews_

Jonny feels his face relax into a smile. _doesn’t count when i just spent ten days touring around america and canada_

_oh, canada, say no more_, Patrick says.

What a dumbass. Jonny’s so relieved. _we’re leaving again in three days,_ he says, even though Patrick probably knows that, with his dad and all.

_yeah,_ Patrick says. _i don’t know if we’ll be able to get together_

It’s more blatant than Patrick usually is, though he still isn’t coming out and saying what he probably really means: that Tiki isn’t going to be out of the house. Jonny’s stomach sinks. He wants to push back on it—why can’t they get together when Tiki’s there?—but he’s not sure what would happen if he did. There’s still so much context he’s missing.

_ok lmk if it changes,_ he says. _i miss playing with you._ And then, because that was definitely too honest, _i mean no one’s insulted my backhand in days_

_don’t worry, i remember it well enough to insult it here,_ Patrick says.

***

Jonny’s planning to just go with it, the thing where he can’t see Patrick before their next road trip. He doesn’t know enough about this situation to mess with it, and he can obviously live without seeing Patrick for another week. But they have a practice the next day, and afterward he has a quick meeting with Stan—just checking in to see how the team is feeling after the road trip—and Stan mentions at the end of the meeting that he’s about to meet with Tiki.

Jonny hesitates for a second. “You know, I noticed that he’s been a little off,” he says, which isn’t quite strictly true—Tiki seemed fine at practice this morning. It was just the game a couple of days ago. “You might want to get him in with a trainer, have them do some ice tests. If there’s anything up with his head, you know, we don’t want to mess with that.”

Stan nods like he’s taking it seriously. Jonny knew he would. No one in the NHL wants to seem like they’re taking concussions lightly. “Thanks for letting me know. I’ll get one of the trainers to see him this afternoon.”

Jonny does a mental fist pump and sprints to his car to drive to Lake Forest.

He feels slightly guilty. But if Tiki’s okay, like he seemed to be this morning, nothing bad will come out of it, and more caution’s never a bad thing.

And it means Jonny has at least an hour’s lead on him.

The guilt comes back when he’s using the code to get through the front gate of Tiki’s house. It’s pretty sneaky, what he’s doing. But the guilt evaporates when he walks around the house to the hockey rink and sees Patrick there, maneuvering the puck through the cones.

Jonny just watches for a moment. It’s ridiculously good to see him. Especially skating: this is Patrick at his best, Patrick as he appears in Jonny’s mind when he closes his eyes. “Hey,” Jonny says, and Patrick startles so hard he drops his stick.

He hasn’t done that in a while. But then, Jonny usually only comes when he’s invited. “Holy fuck!” Patrick shouts. “What are you doing here?”

“I, uh, may have gotten your dad pulled into some stuff at the rink,” Jonny says wrinkling his nose a little. He doesn’t feel totally good about saying it—for one thing, it’s not the most honest thing he’s ever done, and also it means acknowledging this thing where they never see each other when Patrick’s dad might be there to know about it. But Patrick just bursts out laughing.

“Oh, that is too good,” he says. “I hope you got him to take an extra medical exam.”

He looks so good. Jonny has to fight so hard to keep from touching him. He wants to put his hands on that face, touch those curls, breathe him in. He curls his hands into fists at his sides. “Pretty much,” he says.

“He’s gonna hate that,” Patrick says, but he doesn’t sound upset. “So? Where’s your gear?”

They can only play for an hour. But it’s such a good hour. Jonny feels like every time he’s away from Patrick, he forgets how good it is to play with him. Patrick’s playing style really is a lot like Tiki’s, and it’s easy for Jonny to merge them in his mind, but there’s that extra level with Patrick that’s hard to hold onto in his memory. It’s just too good to easily believe in.

An hour isn’t enough. Jonny feels like he’s drinking in Patrick’s presence, giddy with it, still wanting more after a week and a half of deprivation. When they’re like this, skating their hearts out, he feels like Patrick’s the sun: too bright to look at, but Jonny wants to look anyway, can’t stay away. Keeps spiraling closer and closer.

They have to stop, though. Jonny’s not sure how long the trainers will delay Tiki at the rink.

“Stopping while I’m ahead,” Patrick crows.

“You were _not_ ahead,” Jonny says.

“Sure,” Patrick says, drawing the word out, and Jonny wants to grab him and kiss him so badly he almost swallows his tongue.

He’s shaking with it on the drive home; at one point he has to pull over to the side of the road and just make himself take deep breaths, chasing the cloud of Patrick away from his head. He didn’t know it was possible to feel like this about someone. He doesn’t know if it’s possible to survive feeling like this about someone.

He calls Dan when he gets home. “One of my teammates has a secret kid,” he says, once they’ve said hi.

“What? Like he had an affair?” Dan says.

“No,” Jonny says. “Like, he has four kids, but the public only knows about three of them.”

“Huh,” Dan says. “Maybe the kid doesn’t want to be in the spotlight? How old are they?”

“Twenty,” Jonny says.

“What? Oh. So, Tiki Kane.”

“What?” Jonny sits up. “I never said—”

“Come on, there’s no one else on your team old enough to have a twenty-year-old kid,” Dan says. “Unless they had them when they were fifteen, but you probably would have mentioned that.”

Jonny lets his heartbeat calm down a little. “You can’t tell anyone, okay?”

“Of course not,” Dan says. “What would I even tell? ‘Hockey player has one more kid than we thought’ isn’t really hot tabloid gossip.”

“It’s weird, though,” Jonny says. “He and his wife divorced ages ago, and she got the girls, but apparently there was also this son that no one talked about to the media. He’s just living with him in Chicago, and—I don’t think he ever leaves the house.”

It feels strange to say that out loud. Jonny’s been thinking that for a while, but he hasn’t been sure. He still isn’t sure. But Patrick never talks about doing anything outside of the house, and it doesn’t seem like he has the option of coming and hanging out at Jonny’s place. Jonny floated it once, tentatively, and Patrick didn’t bite at all.

“Is there something wrong with him?” Dan asks.

“No. I mean—there must be, I guess? But I can’t figure out what it is. He seems really normal.”

“How do you know?”

“Uh.” Jonny must have wanted to talk about this, or he wouldn’t have called, but he doesn’t really want to admit the whole thing. “I’ve sort of been hanging out with him.”

“Jonny!” Dan’s laughing a little. “Like, in secret?”

“Yeah. I mean, he’s twenty.” Jonny’s aware that he sounds defensive. “He’s not a little kid.”

“Sure, but—there’s still something really weird going on here.”

“I know,” Jonny says. “I’m trying to find out what it is.”

“The kid won’t tell you?”

“No. Anything I ask—he never wants to talk about it.”

“Well then,” Dan says. “Maybe you should drop it.”

Jonny knows that’s what he should do. But even now, when he’s just seen him, thinking about going almost a week without seeing Patrick again—it makes him ache, all the way from his throat to his belly. It makes him want to do something to stop the pain. He doesn’t think he’s going to manage to let this go.

***

They go on the road again, beat the Thrashers, lose to the Blues. Tiki plays fine, and he goes back on the top line. He doesn’t mention the medical exam to Jonny, but Jonny figures they must not have found anything wrong.

They’re back in town by Valentine’s Day, and they play the Stars at home. They don’t go out afterward even though they win; everyone wants to go home to be with their wives and girlfriends. Jonny’s feeling good about himself, even though he’s going home to an empty condo: he had a goal and two assists tonight.

He checks gmail as soon as he gets home the way he always does. Patrick’s online—but Jonny feels self-conscious all of a sudden, like it might be weird to chat him on Valentine’s Day. Like Patrick will know it’s on his mind.

Fortunately, Patrick gchats him before Jonny can freak out and log off. _what, no hot date?_

Jonny feels his ears get hot even while his stomach leaps giddily. _i know better than to take someone out on v day,_ he says.

_don’t want her to get ideas?_

_exactly,_ Jonny says, even though something in him flinches guiltily at the pronoun. It’s not “her,” when all he can think about when he closes his eyes is Patrick. Lying on the bed next to him, close enough to touch, wanting to touch him back.

_sucks. now ur stuck with me,_ Patrick says.

_i know, my life is the worst,_ Jonny says, while his heart beats a painful rhythm of _want, want, want._

***

They’re going on the road yet again two days from now: just three cities this time, six days, but the idea of going another eight days without seeing Patrick makes Jonny want to curl up in a ball and never get up again. He’s honestly thinking about orchestrating another absence for Tiki—maybe Sharpy would agree to invite him somewhere without asking questions? Well, maybe with only a few questions—but Patrick gchats him the next morning and tells him he can come over after practice.

Jonny’s the first one out of the locker room. He drives to Lake Forest like the hounds of hell are behind him—but then he takes a minute in the car after he gets to the Kane property, just reminding himself to stay cool. He’s not going to get out there and jump on Patrick. Patrick’s made it super clear he doesn’t want that, and Jonny doesn’t want to ruin what they have. He breathes that in for a few minutes, and then feels like he can get out and go find Patrick.

It’s a good thing he gave himself that lecture. Patrick smiles so wide when he sees Jonny, and Jonny feels like every scrap of willpower he has goes into not falling at Patrick’s feet and begging Patrick to let him put his hands on him.

Hell, if he thought that would work…

But: hockey. Patrick’s been working his way through classic games of the ’60s while the team’s been on the road, and they do passing drills while Patrick tells him all the ways the game was different back then. Then they do more complicated passing drills, with cones set up to form lanes, and timed runs at it, which Patrick records on a clipboard at one end of the rink.

“And people say I’m obsessive about my training,” Jonny says.

“Hey, I have to have something to shoot for,” Patrick says. Then he looks away, like he just said something embarrassing.

Jonny tightens his hands into fists. He is _not_ going to kiss him. No matter what Patrick says, or how clearly Jonny can imagine it.

Patrick invites him in for cocoa again, even though Jonny threatens to make herbal tea instead, and they’re arguing while the hot water heats up when a chime sounds throughout the house and Patrick goes rigid.

“Fuck. _Fuck,_” he says.

“What?” Jonny asks as Patrick hurriedly puts the tea away.

“That’s the sound for the gate,” Patrick says, turning off the water and pushing Jonny toward the door, and his boots and coat. “Come on, you have to move your car—”

Jonny’s too thrown to do anything but follow Patrick’s lead. Patrick has him drive the car behind the pool house, and then tells him to stay there with it. “I’ll come get you in a few minutes,” he says, and Jonny doesn’t question him.

The pool house is behind the main house, down a separate little drive. Jonny parks behind it and peers around the corner as Tiki’s SUV pulls up in front of the house.

He can’t see Tiki get out from his angle. He presses himself against the wall of the pool house and wonders how the fuck he ended up in this position.

It’s maybe ten minutes before Patrick comes back. “Sorry,” he says. “I had to wait until he went into the kitchen.”

“What’s going on?” Jonny asks.

“Come on, you can wait in the pool house,” Patrick says, pulling out a set of keys. “We keep the heat on in the winter for the pipes.”

The pool house is nice inside, obviously well kept up even in the off-season, and considerably warmer than the outside. Patrick moves busily around inside, looking out the windows that face the main house and then drawing the blinds over them.

“There,” he says when he’s done. “We can’t turn on the lights, but he shouldn’t be able to see us otherwise.”

“Patrick.” Jonny’s still standing on the tiles in the little foyer. “Why don’t we just tell your dad I’m here?”

Patrick stops his bustling around, paused with a hand on the kitchenette counter. “We can’t do that,” he says.

“Why not?” Jonny says. “I get that it might be awkward, but—”

“Can we just—not?” Patrick meets Jonny’s eyes, and there’s a plea there, but that’s not what makes Jonny stop talking. It’s the fear. Whatever’s going on, Patrick’s honestly afraid.

“There are games and stuff in the living room,” Patrick says after a long moment. “You want to play one?”

Jonny does not. He wants to go up to Patrick, and smooth the hair that’s fallen over his forehead, and find out what’s going on. He wants to do something about the sick feeling that’s building in his stomach. “Sure,” he says.

***

They play Trouble. Jonny gets into it, because he can’t help getting into games, but he doesn’t stop noticing the way Patrick’s shoulders and jaw are tense. “Where does he think you are?” Jonny asks at one point.

Patrick’s quiet for a moment as he moves his piece. “I keep a set of weights over here,” he says. “Sometimes I come here to work out.”

There’s more behind that statement, Jonny suspects. He wants to hear it, and at the same time he suspects he really, really doesn’t.

It does occur to him, briefly, that Patrick might just be paranoid. Tiki did say there was some kind of mental illness there. But—Jonny can’t quite believe it. He can’t rule it out, but it doesn’t feel like what’s going on here. “If you think he might hurt you—” Jonny says.

Patrick looks up from the board. “What? No. He would never hurt me.” He sounds surprised enough by the suggestion that Jonny relaxes a little. But there’s still something deeply not right here.

Patrick has to go in to dinner a little later. He comes back after, on the excuse of having forgotten something, and smuggles Jonny some leftovers. “He goes to bed early,” Patrick says. “I’ll come back and tell you when it’s safe.”

“Okay.” Jonny knows he shouldn’t do anything that will make Patrick uncomfortable, but he can’t resist reaching out and grabbing his sleeve as he turns to leave. “Patrick. Are you gonna be okay?” _In there,_ he means.

Patrick looks bleak for a moment. Then it’s covered over, his face going back to normal. “Of course,” he says. “It’s just my dad.”

Somehow, that doesn’t make Jonny feel a lot better.

Jonny goes and sits in the darkening living room of the pool house, trying to read about nutrition on his phone and getting distracted for minutes at a stretch. It’s after eleven when Patrick finally comes back, opening the door without turning on a light.

“Sorry about that,” he says, his voice low. “He was watching something and didn’t go up till late.”

“But you’re sure he’s asleep now.”

“Yeah, you should be safe,” Patrick says, and—he takes Jonny’s wrist through his jacket to lead him to the door.

It’s maybe the first time Patrick’s voluntarily touched him. Jonny can’t enjoy it the way he wants to. But it emboldens him to turn at the door and say, “Patrick. If you want to—” He casts a look at the dark house. He doesn’t want to say too much here. “I mean, I have a guest room—”

Patrick definitely gets what he’s saying. Jonny can tell that even in the dark. Jonny thinks he’s going to say no. But instead, Patrick slides his hand down from Jonny’s wrist and takes Jonny’s hand in his.

Jonny’s breath stops. Patrick’s palm is smooth and warm, with little calluses on his fingers from hockey, and Jonny can’t focus on anything else. Patrick’s holding his hand. His grip is firm, wrapped around Jonny’s hand like Jonny’s something he’s certain of. Like Jonny is his.

Jonny thinks, as well as he can with his brain fuzzed out, that it means Patrick’s going to come with him. But all Patrick says a moment later is, “You’d better get going.”

It a minute for the words to register. It’s Patrick saying goodbye. Whatever this is, it isn’t the thing Jonny wants. Jonny can’t have the thing he wants. 

Jonny makes himself pull away, taking his hand out of Patrick’s and letting go of that heat. “Let me know if you need anything,” he says lamely. Patrick looks like he’s going to say something else, but he doesn’t. He just watches Jonny from the doorway as he goes to his car. And then Jonny has to drive off, leaving Patrick in that house that puts fear into his eyes.

There’s nothing else he can do. But that doesn’t make it any easier.


	5. Chapter 5

Jonny doesn’t get a lot of sleep that night. The next morning, he drags his bleary self in to practice, and he can’t stop staring at Tiki.

He seems like such a nice, normal guy. Easygoing, friendly, a team player. And maybe he is all those things, and Patrick’s just paranoid—but Jonny doesn’t think so. He thinks there’s something going on that gives Patrick a reason to be afraid.

He’s distracted in practice. It’s like—like his body has these ideas about what he should do with the puck, and they aren’t the same ideas Jonny meant to have. He finds himself fighting his own body, and it makes for a shitty practice.

He goes home from practice and goes straight to his computer, waiting anxiously to see when Patrick’s going to sign in to gchat. Finally he does, after lunch, and Jonny opens a window right away. _everything ok?_

Patrick types for a moment. _yah no worries_

Jonny relaxes—but only sort of. If yesterday was Patrick’s idea of things being okay, Jonny’s not sure the word means the same thing to him. _it seems like something pretty bad is going on_

This time Patrick types for longer, like maybe he’s typing and deleting. _it’s ok. there are good reasons for shit_

Jonny bites his lip. He can’t imagine a good reason for making Patrick sneak around in fear like that, just for having a guest in the house. For making Patrick not leave the house at all, maybe. _can you tell me what they are?_

_no_, Patrick says, right away this time. _sorry but i can’t_

Jonny wants to pull more words out of him. But probably the worst thing right now would be to make Patrick think he can’t trust him. He can’t imagine what it would be like if Patrick stopped talking to him. He would—it would be terrible. _ok,_ he says. _well, if you ever want to_

_def,_ Patrick says, and then changes the subject, and Jonny lets him talk about the way line changes worked in the ’60s and ’70s, even if Jonny’s too preoccupied to really follow it.

He can’t decide if it’s a good or bad thing that they’re going out of town the next day. He hates the idea of being so far away from Patrick right now, when he’s so afraid for him—but he wouldn’t necessarily get to see him even if he were still in town, and this means Tiki will be gone, too. Jonny can’t help but think that’s a good thing.

There’s another good thing coming up: as soon as they get back from the road trip, it’s the all-star break. Jonny normally would plan a trip or something with friends, but this year he’s been too distracted to plan anything. Or maybe he deliberately let himself not plan anything, because Tiki’s going to the game. Tiki’s going to be gone for five whole days, and Patrick will be here alone.

Jonny’s trying not to count on that too much as an opportunity to see Patrick. He doesn’t really know what happens in Patrick’s life, what makes Patrick free to see him at some times and not at others. Maybe it’s more than Tiki being gone. But he can’t help but hope, and that hope powers him through the three games of their trip.

It’s a good thing, too. They’re decent games—the Hawks win all of them—but Jonny is still having the weird problem, the one where his body seems to want to do things with the puck that his mind didn’t decide on. It really messes him up for the first period of their game against Tampa. He sort of figures it out after that, how to separate that instinct out and set it aside: it’s like any other distracting thought, and he knows how to guard against those. But it’s harder when the distraction is related to the game itself. He’s relieved when the problem fades on its own after a few days.

He doesn’t mention it to Patrick. He thinks about it—but he doesn’t want to sound like he’s whining, and anyway, it feels weird telling secrets to Patrick when he knows Patrick doesn’t want to open up in return. Like Jonny would be trying to force a level of relationship they don’t have or something.

He thinks about Patrick a lot, though. Even when they’re not actively talking online. He lies in bed at night and replays that moment when Patrick’s hand slid down and took his own.

They get back late at night again, and Jonny opens up his computer first thing the next morning. It’s the first day of the all-star break—though if Jonny remembers the schedule correctly, Tiki doesn’t have to be at the events for a couple of days. But still. You never know.

Patrick’s not online yet. No biggie; not like Jonny expects him to sit around at his computer all day. Jonny fiddles around on the internet for a couple of hours, waiting, but he can’t really stand being stuck behind a screen all day, so he goes for a run and deals with some stuff around the house, checking in every once in a while.

There’s still nothing by the early afternoon. Jonny wonders if Patrick came on while he was on his run, and he shoots Patrick an email: just, _Let me know when you’re around_. Then he runs increasingly antsy errands that involve stopping back at his house every half hour to check gchat.

It is pretty unusual for Patrick not to be online for a whole morning and afternoon. Maybe he and his dad are doing something today, since it’s one of the few days Tiki will be home this month. Jonny has no idea if Patrick has any kind of treatment stuff he ever has to leave the house for. There’s so much he doesn’t know.

It’s the end of the afternoon, the mid-winter sun getting low in the sky, when Jonny starts to worry for real. He knows he shouldn’t. It’s only been a day, and Patrick could be doing anything. Jonny just has a really bad feeling about it.

He feels like he should do something about it—but what could he even do? He can’t call anyone when there isn’t anything real to report. He can’t even go over and find out for himself. Patrick was clearly freaked out at the idea of Tiki finding Jonny at the house, and Jonny doesn’t want to make trouble for him.

Unless. What if Jonny weren’t going to hang out with Patrick? What if he just needed to see Tiki for some reason? Going over in person, unannounced, seems a little extreme. But he could reach out to him. Call him. Come up with a reason to meet up with him, offer to come by…

It’s not a great idea. Jonny knows that. But he’s turning his phone over in his hands, trying to convince himself he can pull it off, when the doorbell rings.

Jonny’s not expecting anyone. He’s not even really paying attention when he opens the door: he’s still thinking about Patrick, imagining what could be going on with him. So it’s hard to believe, for a moment, that he _isn’t_ imagining it when he opens the door and sees Patrick on the other side.

Patrick looks awful. That’s what shocks Jonny into believing it: his eyes are red-rimmed and his curls are all over the place and—and he’s actually here. Jonny’s never been so happy to see someone alive and in front of him in all his life.

“Patrick,” he breathes, and takes a step toward him before catching himself.

Patrick sways toward him a little. He has a bag slung over his shoulder, and his teeth are digging into his lower lip. “Will you take me to Buffalo?”

“What?” Jonny’s hands twitch with the desire to touch. He keeps them balled by his sides.

“My mom,” Patrick says. “She’s really sick. I need to go see her and I can’t—I hate to ask, but—”

“Yeah, of course,” Jonny says. He’s not gonna say no to anything. “You mean like, today?”

Patrick nods, and Jonny gestures him in, careful not to touch. Patrick comes, moving like someone who’s sleepwalking.

They sit on the couch, and Jonny gets his laptop—closing the Gmail window before Patrick can see, as if somehow Patrick will be able to tell how many times Jonny checked it today. He gives Patrick the laptop, and Patrick immediately opens Expedia and types in BUF for the destination airport.

It’s so weird seeing Patrick in his space. Just sitting on the couch with him, like it’s normal. Jonny has so many questions: what’s going on with Patrick’s mom? Was this why Patrick was away from his computer all morning? Why is he coming to Jonny, when his dad could afford to send him to Buffalo on pocket change? He wants to ask, but he’s not sure he should.

Patrick picks a departure date of today. He unclicks the box for round trip.

Jonny’s heart freezes inside of him. “Are you—going forever?”

He can’t actually be opposed to the idea. Whatever’s going on here in Chicago for Patrick, it’s obviously not good. But there’s a sharp pain inside him at the idea of Patrick being so far away forever.

Patrick shakes his head, though. “I’m just not sure how long.” He darts a glance at Jonny. “Is that okay?”

They’re sitting really close on the couch. Jonny doesn’t think he sat down this close to Patrick. They’re not touching, though, and Jonny’s stomach clenches hard with the desire to reach out and touch Patrick’s hand. His face. Put an arm around him. “Of course,” Jonny says. “Do—do you want me to come?”

Patrick hesitates. “You probably have other stuff to do.”

“I was just gonna hang out with you all break,” Jonny says, stomach clenching a little at the admission.

“Then—yeah,” Patrick says. He moves the number of people counter to two. “Yeah, I want you to come.”

Jonny ducks his head to hide what his face is doing at that.

There’s a direct flight out of O’Hare at 9:15. Jonny books them two tickets and types in his credit card number. “Okay, booked,” he says, passing the laptop back to Patrick so he can see. “What are you grinning about?” he asks, because there’s a smile pulling at Patrick’s mouth for the first time since he showed up at Jonny’s door.

“You were just planning to hang out with me all week?” Patrick says. “Loser.”

“Shut up,” Jonny says, digging a knee into his thigh, unreasonably happy.

Jonny takes the remaining time before their flight to pack and call various people about his being gone for the break: his meal service, his cleaning service, his agent. He also calls his mom. “I’m going to Buffalo for the rest of the break,” he says. “A friend is having family troubles.”

He tries not to put any weird stress on “friend.” He maybe doesn’t succeed, though, because she says, “A friend? Do I know her?”

“Uh, no, just a guy who plays hockey locally,” he says, wishing he’d started this conversation in French so the pronouns would have been obvious. “I don’t think you’ve ever met him.”

“Well. You guys must be close, if you’re doing this for him,” his mom says.

“Yeah, he’s a good guy,” Jonny says, hoping Patrick isn’t close enough to overhear. Not that Jonny’s saying anything Patrick shouldn’t hear. He just—feels self-conscious anyway.

They get a cab to the airport, Patrick still being uncharacteristically quiet. Jonny’s not used to navigating commercial air travel, so that takes most of his attention for a while.

He does notice that Patrick’s using some kind of weird ID. “Is that a state ID?” Jonny asks.

Patrick shrugs. “I mean, I don’t have a driver’s license, so.”

Shit. Of course he doesn’t.

Then it’s just waiting to board. Jonny can’t help but pick up on Patrick’s anxiety: Patrick’s obviously tense, looking around like he’s expecting danger to come from any side of him. Makes sense, if he’s not used to crowds—but it makes Jonny tense for him, no matter how hard he tries to do breathing exercises.

Jonny’s phone rings about twenty minutes before boarding, making them both jump. It’s Stan Bowman. “Yeah, hey, Tazer, where you are right now?” Stan says when he answers.

“Uh, the airport,” Jonny says. He can feel Patrick’s eyes on him. “Why?”

“Just got a call from Tiki,” Stan says, and Jonny’s eyes jump to Patrick. “He has a family member visiting, and I guess they’ve gone missing. For some reason he thinks you might know where they are.”

“That’s weird,” Jonny says. Patrick’s hands are wrapped tightly around the armrest between them. “No, I’m just home to visit family. My plane just landed ten minutes ago.”

He’s not sure why he lies like that, but he’s glad when he sees Patrick relax minutely. “Oh, you’re already in Winnipeg?” Stan says. “Well, I’ll tell Tiki you don’t know anything. Thanks.”

Jonny hangs up. “He knows,” Patrick says.

“Your dad? He couldn’t know.”

“He knows there’s someone,” Patrick says. “He’s known for a while now, I think.”

His voice sounds battened down, braced for danger. Jonny feels a physical need to reach out, to comfort him somehow. He’s wondering if maybe he can, if Patrick would want it, when his phone rings again. This time it’s Tiki.

Jonny knows Patrick sees it at the same time he does. He looks up and meets Patrick’s eye. “Answer it,” Patrick says. “But don’t tell him anything.”

Jonny thumbs the phone on. “Hey, Tiki,” he says, reaching out a hand and putting it on Patrick’s shoulder. He’s not sure if it’ll be welcome, but Patrick leans into it. “What’s up?”

“Hey, Tazer. You remember my son, Patrick?”

“Yeah,” Jonny says. “Why, what’s going on?”

“He’s disappeared,” Tiki says. “I came back from our trip last night and he was gone.”

“Oh no,” Jonny says, looking at Patrick’s face. He’s pretty sure that’s not the truth. “Did you call the police?”

“They can’t do anything about it for a few days,” Tiki says. “But I’m pretty concerned—his health makes it hard for him to be out in the world alone. Have you heard from him?”

“No, I mean, I don’t know how he’d contact me,” Jonny says. Patrick’s shoulder is tight, hard as a rock under Jonny’s hand. “Maybe someone else on the team knows?”

“Yeah, I’ll check,” Tiki says. “Hey, if you do hear from him, he might tell you some weird stuff. He’s got—well, let’s just say he’s not always connected with reality. Just let me know where he is, will you?”

It’s all Jonny can do to sound casual and not as furious as he feels. “Sure,” he says.

Patrick meets his eyes after Jonny hangs up, and Jonny takes his hand off his shoulder. “Sorry,” he says. “I know you don’t like to…”

Patrick hesitates, his eyes darting away. “It’s not that…I don’t like it,” he says finally.

Jonny’s not sure if that’s an invitation. But he puts his hand on the armrest, loosely curled—not a straight-out invitation, but half of one. There’s a long moment of silence, in which Jonny doesn’t look at Patrick, and then Patrick’s hand slips into his and grips tight.

Jonny bites down on his lip. It’s a circuit closing: everything he’s wanted to do for Patrick all evening, all the connection he wanted to offer him. It’s there in the clasp of his hands.

They sit there, breathing, not looking at each other. Holding on. “That asshole,” Jonny says after a while, still not looking at him.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Patrick says in a low voice.

Jonny wants to know the half of it. He wants to know the whole of it. But right know Patrick’s hand is in his. If comfort is what Patrick needs right now, Jonny will give it. Jonny will give him whatever he needs.

***

Patrick relaxes the moment the plane takes off. Jonny isn’t looking for it, but he sees it happen anyway: the way Patrick’s shoulders slide back, the little sigh he lets out, the way his whole body goes quieter.

The flight to Buffalo is short and dimly lit. A few minutes into it, Patrick leans his head against Jonny’s shoulder and goes to sleep. Jonny doesn’t move for the entire flight, for fear of ruining it.

It’s late when they arrive in Buffalo. They file off the plane with their carry-ons and get a cab. Patrick gives an address to the driver and stares out the window the whole ride. At first Jonny feels like Patrick’s deliberately tuning him out—but no. Patrick used to live here. Jonny doesn’t know how long it’s been since he’s been back.

It’s a twenty-minute drive before they pull up outside a quiet suburban house. They bring their bags up to the front door, and Jonny can tell that Patrick’s nervous again: not like he was at the airport, though. Just jittery, anxious.

The door’s answered by a sleepy-looking girl with long blond hair, maybe in her late teens. “Hello?” she says, like she’s wondering what they’re doing there. Then her eyes widen, and she says, “_Patty!_” and launches herself at him.

Patrick wraps his arms around her, and they cling to each right there on the front steps. “Erica,” Patrick says, in this low distressed voice, and then some other stuff, murmured so that Jonny can’t hear. Jonny hovers next to them, feeling like he doesn’t belong, but not having any other place to go.

Finally, after a couple of minutes, they separate. Erica doesn’t take her eyes off Patrick. “Come on in, Jess and Jacks will want to see you,” she says, and pulls him into the house. Jonny picks up Patrick’s bag and follows.

The other two girls seem like they were already in bed, but Erica gets them up and they both try to hug Patrick at the same time. One of them is crying. Maybe more than one. Jonny stays back in the doorway, feeling like he’s on the outside again—but he doesn’t actually mind. He doesn’t know how anybody could mind, watching this reunion happen. They’re all so obviously overwhelmed at seeing each other again.

It’s a couple minutes before Patrick pulls back at all. “Guys,” he says, “this is Jonny.”

The girls turn toward Jonny, obviously not really interested in his presence. “Hi,” he says, giving them an awkward wave. “I work with Patrick’s dad.”

That gets their attention. Whatever relationship these girls have with Patrick’s dad, they are _not_ happy to hear that. Jonny’s a little worried for a second that they’re going to do something to him—yell at him, make him leave—but then Patrick says, “He brought me here,” and they all soften a little. Then, “Where’s Mom?” Patrick asks, and there’s another shift in the mood.

It turns out their mom had a stroke. Apparently that’s more information than Patrick had, because he sways a little when they tell him. Jonny has to fight not to reach out and stabilize him. He’s not going to assert some right to comfort Patrick that he doesn’t have, here in front of his sisters. They’re standing in a little knot, the four of them, like there’s a gravitational pull drawing them together.

“Can we see her?” Patrick asks, in a voice that hurts Jonny to hear, and Erica shakes her head.

“Visiting hours start at eight tomorrow,” she says. “But—she’ll be okay, Patty, it’s mostly movement issues.”

“What about you, how are you?” the one who’s probably Jacks says, and Patrick hesitates.

Jonny doesn’t know if Patrick’s hesitating because of him. But he knows they probably have things to say to each other he shouldn’t be there for. “I should probably head to bed,” he says, and they all look at him like they forgot he was there. “Is there somewhere I can crash?”

They end up putting him in their mom’s room, which Jonny feels weird about, but it’s the only empty room, and he likes the idea that he’s leaving them their privacy. He falls asleep trying not to wish he knew the things they’re saying to each other.

***

Patrick’s nervous again on the trip in to the hospital. Jonny’s starting to realize that a lot of the challenge of this trip, for him, is going to be not reaching out and comforting Patrick physically even when it seems like he really, really needs it.

The girls go in ahead to prepare their mom for who’s coming. Patrick stands in the hall, biting his lip and darting his eyes around like he can’t let them settle anywhere. “Do you need anything?” Jonny asks him, and he’s gratified when Patrick turns toward him immediately—not quite touching him, but making their own bubble of space in the hallway.

“What if she doesn’t remember me?” Patrick asks in a low voice.

“Your sister said she wasn’t having any mental problems,” Jonny says.

“That’s not.” Patrick shakes his head. He takes the edge of Jonny’s jacket sleeve, right at the wrist. “It’s not that. It’s just, it’s been so long since she’s seen me.”

Jonny breathes in. “I’m sure your mom will know you,” he says.

He’s close enough to Patrick’s temple that he could kiss it. He wants to. “But,” Patrick says, and then Erica says, “Patty?” and he turns at once.

Jonny isn’t planning to go in with him. But Patrick still has a hold on his jacket sleeve, and Jonny lets himself be pulled inside.

Mrs. Kane is lying in a hospital bed, pale and bruise-eyed, a bandage wrapped around her head. One half of her face looks oddly lifeless, but her eyes focus on Patrick right away. “Baby,” she breathes, raising one arm, and Patrick runs to her.

Jonny should leave, probably. But he can’t bring himself to move: Patrick’s in his mom’s arms, and they’re rocking back and forth. His eyes are shut, but there are tears leaking from under his eyelids.

Jonny should have figured out a way to make this happen sooner. He should have realized this needed to happen.

“Pat,” his mom says at last—the first thing either of them has said that Jonny’s been able to hear, not just words they were murmuring to each other. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?”

Now Jonny does feel like he should have left. “Mom, this is Jonny,” Patrick says, and Jonny sees the flash of recognition on her face.

“Jonny,” she says, holding out a hand that’s trailing an IV tube. “Thank you for helping to bring Patrick here.”

“It was nothing, ma’am,” he says.

“No,” she says emphatically, “it was not.” She’s holding Patrick’s hand, and Patrick’s looking at her like she’s the most important thing in the world, and—no. She’s right. It definitely wasn’t nothing. Even if Jonny’s part in it was small.

Jonny’s not sure what to do with himself that day while Patrick’s with his mom. He wants to be in there with Patrick, but she’s not his mom, and there’s a limit on how many visitors can be in the room at a given time. He spends most of his time outside the room, hanging out in the waiting room and making himself useful whenever someone needs food or coffee or something.

Sometimes Patrick comes out, and those are the best times. Also the worst, because Jonny can see how Patrick’s worried about her, the way he chews on his lip and seems distracted. But Jonny would still rather have him around, even if just to sit next to him and be worried together.

Jonny’s so fucked.

“She’s going to be okay,” Patrick says one time when they’re sitting in the waiting room together, Jonny fighting the urge to put an arm around him, do something to comfort him. “They’re not sure how long it’ll take, but they think she’ll get most of her movement back on the left side of her body.”

“That’s great,” Jonny says.

Patrick nods, takes in a shaky breath. Then, after a long pause: “She looks so much older.”

Jonny’s not sure what to read into that. “Than before the stroke?” he asks, even though he’s pretty sure that’s not what Patrick meant.

Patrick just huffs a breath through his nose, and Jonny doesn’t ask anything more. It’s not the time. But—he’s going to find out. He needs some answers, at this point. He can’t just let this go.

The girls go home around dinnertime. Jackie and Jess are still in high school, and tomorrow’s Monday; Erica seems to be on leave from college. She takes the other two home to eat and rest up for school tomorrow, and Jonny’s left with Patrick.

Mrs. Kane—Donna—is asleep when Jonny goes into the room. Patrick’s sitting by the bed, not looking like he’s going to move anytime soon.

“Hey,” Jonny says, brushing a hand against his shoulder blade, feeling like he’s getting away with something. “I’m gonna get us some food.”

Patrick looks up at him. He seems like he’s really seeing him, not like other times during the day when he’s seemed distracted by everything else. “Thanks,” Patrick says. “I don’t want to leave her, you know?”

Jonny gets them sushi. It’s the only thing he knows for sure Patrick likes. He heads back, and realizes when he’s outside the room again that Donna must be awake; he can hear voices.

He shouldn’t stop and listen. But he pauses instinctively, not wanting to interrupt, and it only takes a second to realize they’re talking about him.

“It seems like you two have gotten close,” Donna’s saying.

“Yeah,” Patrick says. “It’s not—I mean, there are…limits. But he’s really great.”

“I’m so glad,” Donna says. “Maybe he can help you finally get your career off the ground.”

Patrick gives a strangled laugh. “Mom. I’m not gonna have a hockey career. You know that, right? I can’t just—be around hockey players.”

“You’re around him,” she says.

“He doesn’t know,” Patrick says. “If he found out—”

Okay, no, Jonny can’t keep eavesdropping on this. He knocks on the door. “I got us sushi,” he says, showing them the takeout containers. “I’m sorry, ma’am, I didn’t know you were awake, or I would have gotten more,” he says to Donna.

“That’s okay, I don’t think the staff would have been thrilled about that,” she says.

She’s not on a restricted diet, so they do slip her a few pieces. They sit around eating, making conversation, and it feels easy and comfortable. Except for the part where Jonny keeps thinking: what is it that Patrick doesn’t want him to find out?


	6. Chapter 6

The next few days in Buffalo are pretty similar to the first, except that Jess and Jackie are in school most of the day. Jonny spends time at the hospital with Patrick and Erica, and they read to Donna and play games with her and clear out when the physical therapist is there. It’s not what Jonny would have expected to be doing on his all-star break, and sometimes he feels like he’s intruding and shouldn’t be there at all, but other times he’ll catch that helpless look on Patrick’s face and go stand near him and Patrick will hook a finger around his sleeve and Jonny wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

He finds himself alone with Donna on the third day. He doesn’t think much of it, initially—Erica convinces Patrick to go with her to get food, saying, “Come on, Patty, you’ve barely left this room in days, you’re gonna become a vampire”—and Jonny volunteers to stay without thinking about what it will mean. But then Patrick and Erica are gone and Jonny realizes he’s alone with the mother of the guy he’s secretly in love with and he has no idea what to say at all.

He’s hoping he doesn’t have to say much. Her eyes are closed, like maybe she’s going to nap again, so Jonny thinks maybe this will be easy. He sits down in the chair Patrick vacated, and when he next looks up at the bed, she has her eyes open and is looking at him.

Jonny hopes the way he jumps isn’t obvious. “Can I get you anything?” he asks.

“No, I’m fine,” she says. It’s probably a lie, but she’s fixing him with a serious look and he’s not about to call her on it. “How much do you know about what’s going on with Patrick?”

Oh. They’re talking about it. Jonny’s heart picks up speed. “Uh, not much,” he says. “I know it’s maybe—not great? He doesn’t seem to leave the house much,” he says, and then feels like maybe he’s betraying Patrick’s confidence, even though Patrick’s never told him that and his mom probably already knows.

“No,” she says, “but it seems like you’ve been good for him.”

“I hope so. I mean. I didn’t realize—” Jonny doesn’t know how to finish that sentence. But he knows that it’s worse than he thought; has known since Patrick showed up at his door three days ago. Since that day Tiki almost caught them, really. “I should have done more,” he says. “I should have tried harder to figure out what was going on.”

“Is that what you think?”

“Well—yeah,” Jonny says. He wonders if Donna is about to yell at him about it. He’d deserve it. “Patrick is—I should have known Tiki was lying about him. I should have done _something_.”

Donna turns her head away with a sigh, looking at the ceiling. For a long moment she’s silent, and Jonny thinks maybe their conversation is over. Then she says, “Do you know Patrick’s father well?”

“Uh, not that well,” Jonny says. “I mean we play together, but he’s not…you know. He’s kind of closed off.”

“Tell me about it,” she says with another little sigh. “Tiki can be…he’ll get an idea in his head, and he’ll bend the world to make it happen. Patrick can be stubborn, too—but it’s hard to stand up to your own father, especially when he’s like Tiki. I see a little of that in you,” she says, looking suddenly at Jonny. “That determination. You seem like you don’t bend easily.”

Jonny wonders if that’s a good thing. It doesn’t sound like it.

“We divorced when Patrick was nine,” Donna says. “Tiki gave me the girls, and I thought I was lucky to have that much. He had the NHL on his side, the money, the lawyers. I thought if I pushed back, I would lose everything. The girls, and Patrick—I already knew he was keeping Patrick isolated. It was one of the things we fought about. But I thought, maybe if he didn’t have me to push back against, if he was free—”

She closes her eyes for a long minute. When she speaks again, it’s in a lower voice. “You think you’re mad at yourself for not having done something after being his friend for a few months,” she says. “I’m his mother. And I let that man take him away from me eleven years ago, knowing what he might do to him, and I didn’t even fight for him.”

Jonny bites his lip. He wants to reach out, take her hand, but he’s not sure if he should—not sure if he should touch her, and not sure if he should offer her forgiveness that easily. “What is it?” he asks. “What has his dad been doing to him?”

“Patrick hasn’t told you?” she says.

He shakes his head. “But—please.”

“Then, I’m sorry,” she says. “I think you should know, too. But I’ve let enough happen to Patrick. I’m not going to take his choices away from him.”

Jonny bites down on the inside of his cheek so hard it hurts. “I need to—be able to _help_ him,” he says finally, his voice low and raw.

Her hands finds its way to his, rests on top of it briefly. “I know,” she says. “And maybe it’s just me being optimistic. Hoping someone else can undo what I did eleven years ago. But I think you will. I think you already are.”

***

They let Donna out of the hospital after four days. She’s mobile enough that she can be in her own home, and Erica’s taking at least a few weeks off from college to be around during the day.

“That’s gonna mess up your credits,” Patrick says. “Are you sure that’s gonna be okay?”

She shrugs. “I can make them up in the summer.”

Patrick bites his lip, looking unconvinced. He hasn’t said anything about what his own plans are.

Jonny wants to ask him. But he doesn’t think he could be neutral about the answer. And it’s easy not to ask, while the all-star break is still happening, while they can live in this bubble of being around each other all day.

Things feel a little easier with Donna back in the house. She needs a lot of sleep, and they keep someone near her at all times, but as she points out, it’s not actually conducive to rest to have all five of them crowded into her bedroom watching her. So there’s a lot of hanging out on the couch in the den instead, watching old movies that were Patrick and his sisters’ favorites when they were little, or finding whatever trashy reality show they can make the most fun of.

Jonny likes Patrick’s sisters. They’re friendly and funny and snark back at him as fast as Patrick does. But he likes best when it’s just him and Patrick. That’s when things seem to notch up a level: when the energy gets immediately more intense, bouncing back and forth between them.

The barriers between them seem to be different than they were in Chicago. Patrick doesn’t hold himself apart, untouchable. Maybe it’s because his sisters touch him so easily, hugging him all the time, hitting him playfully; maybe it’s just that they’re so distant from their normal lives. Whatever the reason, the first day Donna’s back in the house, Patrick leans against Jonny’s side while they all watch _Pocahontas,_ and Jonny hardly breathes the whole movie. That night, he risks putting his arm around Patrick while they watch _Lilo and Stitch,_ and Patrick just lets out a breath and snuggles against his side.

Jonny’s not planning to take it any further. He still doesn’t know if Patrick means anything by it. But then they’re on the couch on Saturday, just the two of them, and Patrick insists on going back to _Real Housewives_ and Jonny’s fighting him for the remote. “Come _on,_ Patrick, this show is actually the worst,” Jonny says, trying to reach the remote where Patrick’s holding it out to his other side.

“Nope, I know you have a crush on the one with the boob job,” Patrick says.

“One, they all have boob jobs, and two, I a hundred percent do not,” Jonny says, almost getting his hand around Patrick’s wrist before Patrick gets it out of reach.

“You know what I mean, the one with the really _big_ boob job,” Patrick says, and Jonny shifts his weight and pins Patrick against the cushions.

Patrick squirms away, laughing, trying to keep Jonny from pinning his arms, and Jonny gets his shoulders instead, pushing them down flat. Patrick’s looking up at him, eyes bright and happy, tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth, and Jonny—

Jonny’s not sure what comes over him. Patrick’s so close and he looks so good and his mouth is _right there_ and before Jonny knows what he’s doing, he’s kissing him.

For a moment everything freezes, Jonny struck with horror at what he’s doing. Then Patrick breathes out this little sigh and parts his lips and kisses back and Jonny’s heart starts up again. Starts pounding through his whole body.

Patrick’s lips are tentative against his. A little bit chapped. They brush Jonny’s, little soft sips that turn Jonny’s head. The tips of their tongues meet, just the tiniest flick, and Patrick makes a sound in the back of his throat that leaves Jonny panting. He can’t think. He’s dizzy with it.

Patrick tilts his head and changes the angle a little and it’s like a revelation. The way their mouths fit together feels like every moment they’ve had of connecting on the ice, all at once. It feels perfect.

They break the kiss, faces still millimeters from each other, both of them gasping. Jonny feels dazed. Bowled over. Terrified.

“Can we,” he whispers. “I mean, I still don’t know what it is you’re—”

“Please,” Patrick says, an edge of desperation in his voice. His cheeks are pink; Jonny can see it, too close for his eyes to really focus on, and he can feel the heat of it when his thumb brushes over it. That flush, like when Patrick’s on the ice. “Can we just—”

His mouth opens under Jonny’s, and Jonny isn’t asking anything else. There isn’t room inside him for questions. He’s too full of the taste of Patrick. The shocking sensation of their tongues, exploring each other; lips brushing against each other and making Jonny feel like he’s flying. Like he’s dissolving. Like this is the most important thing in the universe, right here.

They’re still on the couch in the living room. Jonny doesn’t want to stop long enough to relocate. But he doesn’t want anyone else to share this moment. It’s too perfect: his mouth moving against Patrick’s, his hand sliding down the curve of Patrick’s neck, their fingers tangling together. The little gasp as Jonny noses his cheek. The little moan when Jonny mouths at his ear.

It’s Patrick who finally pulls back. His cheeks are even more flushed than before, and his eyes wide and blown dark, the blue a thin rim around the pupil. His mouth is swollen pink. Jonny wants to look at him forever. “Come on,” Patrick says, and takes Jonny’s hand and leads him upstairs.

***

They don’t do much more than kiss that night. Though that’s the wrong way to think about it, Jonny thinks: it feels like there could hardly be anything bigger than kissing, when he puts his lips on Patrick’s. Like just kissing him is enough to fill up the universe.

He’s not sure Patrick’s ever done more than kiss. He’s not sure Patrick’s done that much. Jonny doesn’t care: Patrick’s tentative with it, careful, until his breath speeds up and then he’s gasping into Jonny’s mouth and making sounds like he never learned to hold them in. Making sounds like every touch is a miracle.

It is. Jonny skates his fingers over the hollow of Patrick’s throat and feels like he’s being given a privilege greater than anyone’s ever had in all of history. He laces his fingers with Patrick’s and feels Patrick’s grip on his hand and feels like no one’s ever held onto him before. He strokes his tongue against Patrick’s and knows that nothing’s ever turned him so thoroughly inside out.

His cock is hard, but he doesn’t care. It feels like it would ruin things to go for more right now. Like if he sprinted on toward something else he’d miss all the magic of these little touches, the ones that make Patrick’s eyelids flutter and his breath catch.

He’s so beautiful. Jonny doesn’t know how he ever looked at him without his heart turning somersaults inside of him. He can’t believe Patrick wants this too.

They end up lying together, Patrick’s head on Jonny’s chest and Jonny’s arms around him. “I can hear your heartbeat,” Patrick whispers.

“Probably slowing down,” Jonny says.

Patrick laughs. “I can feel it when you talk,” he says, and Jonny’s thrown back to the first time he ever lay with a lover, ever heard her voice through his ear pressed to her body. It didn’t feel like this.

He wants to tell Patrick what he’s feeling right now. He wants to reach for words big enough they might come close to expressing it. But something holds him back: the things he doesn’t know, maybe. The questions he didn’t finish asking earlier, when they first kissed.

He doesn’t want to ask them now. He wants to stay in this state where his body is tingling and Patrick’s pressed against him like a revelation. He skates his hand up and down Patrick’s back, fingers tracing lightly through his shirt, and holds onto the wonder of it.

***

They spend the night together like that, Patrick flush against Jonny while they sleep. They walk into breakfast together, not holding hands or anything, but Jackie takes one look at them and gasps and then all the girls are giggling and teasing them. Jonny’s grinning and not even fighting to keep his eyes off the flush on Patrick’s cheeks or the bright look in his eyes.

There was no way they weren’t going to be caught. Jonny doesn’t even care: he kind of wants everyone to know, the media, the whole world. It feels too good to keep inside. But he doesn’t want to disrupt it, either—doesn’t want to do anything that might pop the bubble they’re in. Doesn’t even want to think about the flight he has booked for tomorrow morning. That’s a long way away.

They spend the morning hanging around the house, visiting Donna, Patrick tucked into the curve of Jonny’s body on the couch while they hang out with his sisters in the living room. Jonny can’t keep the grin off his face for more than a minute or two at a time.

“Your face is going to freeze like that,” Patrick says to him when they sneak off to make out in the laundry room, where they’re theoretically catching up on the laundry backlog.

“Good,” Jonny says. He’s okay with everyone knowing how he feels about this.

Patrick laughs and leans in and noses along Jonny’s jawline. “No one on your team will ever take you seriously again.”

“Are you saying you don’t take me seriously,” Jonny says, sliding his hands up Patrick’s back.

“Not even a little bit,” Patrick says, but then he kisses Jonny, wet and deep, and it feels pretty serious to Jonny.

Jonny doesn’t mean anything by it when he makes the suggestion later that afternoon. He’s just looking at his phone, trying not to think about how many hours it is before he has to face reality again, and he notices that it’s just past one and says, “Hey, the all-star game is on.”

He’s not expecting the chill that falls over the room. He’s not expecting the way Patrick goes tense against him—though probably he should have been. He just wasn’t thinking.

He opens his mouth to apologize for bringing it up, but before he can, Erica speaks up. “Your call, Patty.”

Jonny can feel the tension through the arm he has around Patrick’s waist: a new feeling in this body he’s only starting to get to know. “What?” Patrick asks.

She’s giving him a weighty look. “It’s been over a week, right?” she says. “Don’t you want to see?” 

Jonny’s not sure what they’re talking about. He feels the edge of danger: that golden, floaty feeling he’s been suspended in since last night suddenly at risk. He doesn’t want it to be. He’s not ready.

Jess is the one who takes the remote and turns the TV on. She goes to ESPN, where the commentators are talking about the start of the game. There’s a mood in the room like they’re all holding their breath.

Jonny doesn’t know why. He thinks maybe they’re waiting for Tiki to be mentioned, but then the commentators bring him up—“the most frequent all-star since Lemieux”—and no one relaxes, or explodes. Whatever they’re waiting for, it isn’t that.

It’s not seeing Tiki’s face, either. He comes onto the ice with the other Western Conference players, the announcer shouting his name, and nothing changes. Patrick’s back against Jonny’s chest is a long line of tension.

Tiki’s a starter. He’s on Thornton’s right wing, and the puck goes straight to him when Thornton wins the faceoff. And then they’re off.

Or—are they? Tiki takes the puck and goes to take it up the ice, but it gets stripped from him right away. That’s the kind of thing that happens to good players all the time; no big deal. But it doesn’t take long after that for Jonny to start frowning. It’s the last time Tiki has the puck all shift, and—Jonny hates to think this about his linemate—not for lack of opportunity. Something’s a little off. Tiki’s looking slower than usual. Not quite in command of the puck like Jonny’s used to.

He narrows his eyes at the screen, wondering if he’s imagining things. Letting the atmosphere in the room color his perceptions. But he’s reviewed hundreds of hours of game tape with Tiki on his right wing. This isn’t normal. It isn’t even all-star-game, not-really-trying normal.

Jonny’s not sure what the dread is that’s building inside of him. He doesn’t have the world’s best opinion of Tiki right now; he doesn’t mind if he loses his edge. But maybe the mood of the room is sinking into him. The rigidity of Patrick’s back, shoulder blades tight against Jonny’s pecs.

He looks at the other Kanes in the room with him. Jackie’s biting her lip. Jess looks steely-eyed. Erica looks—pleased?

Jonny wishes he could see Patrick’s face.

On the screen, Tiki’s back on the ice. Second shift. Jonny looks back just in time to see Markov check Tiki into the boards—not a hard check, but Tiki lands badly, shoulder dropping down and hitting at what looks like a painful angle. Jonny flinches, holds his breath to see if he’s going to get up, but he lies there, curled up in pain. The whistle blows for stoppage of play.

The held-breath feeling in the room dissipates. “See?” Erica says. “I told you.”

“That’s not what you said,” Jess says.

“No, but I said he’d get out of playing,” Erica says.

“Shut up,” Patrick says, his voice taut. He hasn’t relaxed at all.

“He did play,” Jackie says.

“Yeah, but he sucked,” Erica says. “That’s why he had to get himself hurt. He wasn’t gonna be able to play well. It’s been too long since Pat—”

“Shut up,” Patrick snaps, and this time he pushes out of Jonny’s arms and stands up.

Jonny lets him go, not sure what he’s seeing. Something’s very wrong. One of the things they haven’t been talking about; one of the questions Jonny hasn’t found the answer to yet.

_It’s been too long since Pat—_

“Patrick?” he says, something dark and frightening welling up inside of him. He keeps his eyes on Patrick, trying not to look too closely at anything else.

Patrick’s holding his shoulders as tightly as Jonny’s ever seen. As tightly as that night Jonny hid in the poolhouse, both of them afraid Tiki would find him and—do what? Jonny’s heart is beating too fast, his mouth sharp like metal.

“You all can watch the rest of it without me,” Patrick says, and walks out of the room.

There’s silence in his wake. It’s broken only by the commercials blaring quietly on the TV. Jonny doesn’t look at Patrick’s sisters, but he can tell that at least Erica is watching him. He doesn’t want to see what’s in her eyes.

“I’m gonna go after him,” he says.

Patrick isn’t in the bedroom he’s been using upstairs, which is the first place Jonny looks for him. Jonny looks through the other bedrooms, trying not to think too much as he does. But it’s a little too clear to sidestep, and Patrick walking away from him like this makes it feel unavoidable.

_He wasn’t gonna be able to play well—too long since Pat—_

He finds Patrick finally in the basement, on the futon that’s in a semi-finished corner with the exercise equipment and an old TV. It’s tuned to the all-star game.

Jonny looks at Patrick. Patrick’s watching the screen, but Jonny can tell from his body language that he’s not really seeing it; that’s he’s more focused on Jonny, standing there watching him.

It doesn’t make any sense, what Jonny’s thinking. But none of this has ever made any sense. Jonny remembers meeting Patrick in December, the game he had right after that. Then a couple of weeks ago. That weird feeling, like his hands wanted to do things to the puck his brain wasn’t telling them to do. And then—all those times Patrick shied away from his touch. Until the last twenty-four hours, when Patrick’s touched him almost non-stop.

“If I played right now,” Jonny says. “Who would I play like? Me or you?”

Patrick doesn’t look away from the TV, but his lip is bloodless where he’s been biting it. “I’m sorry,” he says.

“Don’t be _sorry_,” Jonny says. He’s suddenly unaccountably angry. Patrick probably isn’t the right target for his anger, but Jonny can’t help but direct it at him, at least a little bit. “You’re not—” He goes and sits down on the futon, sideways, his leg up on the cushion so that he’s facing Patrick a couple feet away from him. “You don’t have to be fucking sorry for—whatever this is.”

“For being a freak?” Patrick’s cheeks are flushed, red spots high on his cheekbones. “For not being able to go outside, because what if someone found out? For quitting hockey at age eight, because it was getting too obvious, and what if someone realized? What if they knew what I could do for them?”

“So what?” Jonny says. “It’s not like you—”

“Do you know what I could do?” Patrick turns toward Jonny, his eyes unreadable, hands spread in front of him like they’re on display. “With these hands, I could make a hundred Tiki Kanes. I could turn the U.S. team into guaranteed champions. Forget the U.S.—any country that had me. Any team. Anyone that took me and wanted to use me. Forget putting me on the ice. Just keep me locked up somewhere, touching the players, until I forget what it even feels like to skate.”

“Fuck,” Jonny says.

Patrick grabs Jonny’s hand, presses his own palm against Jonny’s. “Is this what you want? Is this what you’re after?”

“No.” Jonny pulls his hand away. “Stop it.”

“I can’t stop,” Patrick says. “This is what I am. And it’s never, ever, going to _stop._”

Jonny can’t even speak for a minute. It still doesn’t make sense. But he’s seen how Tiki plays with and without Patrick. And looking at Patrick’s face, the angry flush on his cheeks, his shuttered eyes staring back at the TV—Jonny can’t doubt that it’s true.

He wants to touch Patrick. Wants to make him feel better. Doesn’t think that would work right now.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks finally.

It’s a dumb question. He knows that even before Patrick gives him a scornful look. “Weren’t you listening?”

“Yeah, but.” Jonny gets it. But Patrick could have trusted him. Should have trusted him. “Does it—hurt?”

Patrick shakes his head, still looking at the TV. He seems tired now, anger spent. “It feels—not like much. My hands heat up a little. That’s how I know it’s happening. But if I play too much—more than a couple hours a day. It stops working.” He quirks his mouth. “It hasn’t worked as well as it should, these past couple of months.”

Since he started playing with Jonny. Jonny feels an overwhelming wave of, _good_. It shouldn’t work. “So, wait,” he says. “Your dad—he keeps you locked up, because if he lets you out, or lets you play hockey—”

“He doesn’t keep me locked up,” Patrick says. “It’s my choice.”

“Since you were eight years old,” Jonny says. “Fuck’s sake, Patrick, it can’t be your choice at that age. He tells you you can’t go out, because someone might find you, take advantage of you, when he’s already—”

“It’s not like that.” Patrick’s breathing harshly. “He needs me.”

_I_ need you, Jonny thinks, but doesn’t say. He’s still reeling in horror at the way Patrick’s dad’s been using him. He doesn’t want to add to it. Not even if what he wants Patrick for is—himself, not whatever ability he can give to Jonny. “I’m sorry,” he says instead, voice low.

Patrick’s eyes are wet. He’s still looking at the TV, but there are tears clumping his lower lashes. Jonny raises a hand to brush his tears away, and stops, hand near his face. Can’t help but feel the brokenness he might add to with his touch. “Can I?” he asks.

Patrick nods. Jonny cups his face with his hand, brushing his thumb over the wet lashes under his eye. Patrick closes his eye and turns his face into Jonny’s palm. Takes a shuddering breath.

When Jonny kisses him, it’s a brush of lips more tentative than anything Patrick tried last night. He tastes him, wondering what it is he’s tasting: what has Patrick been through these past twenty years that Jonny’s only starting to guess at?

He still tastes like Patrick. He also tastes like pain. But Jonny already knew that was there, didn’t he?

The kiss only lasts for a minute, but Jonny leaves his hand on Patrick’s face when their lips part. His chest feels shaky, like it’s made out of separate pieces, shivering and precarious. “What are you going to do?” he asks.

Patrick opens his eyes, looking at him helplessly. “He’s my dad. He’s done—he’s done everything for me. He left my mom for me; he—"

“You can’t really believe that,” Jonny says. He can’t believe Tiki was a safer person to be with than Donna.

Patrick shakes his head, not a denial, just pushing it all away.

“Patrick. He—” There are so many things Jonny wants to say against Tiki. The way he’s been exploiting Patrick for years. The way Patrick looked so frightened that night he hid Jonny in the pool house. The way Patrick had to come to Jonny to be able to go visit his mother in the hospital. But it’s too much. He doesn’t want to put Patrick on the defensive. “What about you?” he says instead. “You deserve more than this.”

“This is what I have to offer,” Patrick says, and Jonny has a terrified glimpse at a deep chasm: the many times over the years Patrick must have been told this is what he’s good for. Praised for this. Told to do his duty. Reminded what he owes his father.

“That’s not true,” Jonny says fiercely. “You’re amazing. You’d be an amazing player. You could play for yourself—play anywhere you want—or you could do anything else you wanted. You’re smart, you’re so good at stats, you’re so—” He slides his hand to the back of Patrick’s neck, leans their foreheads together. “Patrick. I fucking love you,” he whispers, feeling the words break him open as they leave him.

Patrick shudders against him. “I can’t just leave,” he says, his voice barely there.

Jonny closes his eyes. He feels helpless. He wants to find Tiki, make him pay for what he’s done; he wants to take Patrick, wrap him up in something warm and safe, steal him away. But Patrick’s already been stolen away once. Jonny can’t just do it again.

“What about your mom?” he says desperately. “She needs you, too. And Erica—she could go back to school, if you were here. What if you just gave it some time? Don’t fly back with me. Stay here. Just for a couple of weeks. See how it goes.”

Patrick breathes in, out, his breath a soft brush against Jonny’s face. “Okay,” he whispers.


	7. Chapter 7

Jonny lies awake for going on an hour that night. His flight tomorrow morning is at an ungodly hour; he should really be asleep. But he can’t stop thinking that this might be the last night he’ll spend in a house with Patrick.

He shouldn’t go up to him. Jonny’s not sure what exactly he forfeited, when he told Patrick to stay with his mom and sisters. He can’t regret the decision—almost anything is better than seeing Patrick go back to his dad. But he doesn’t know what happens next, and he doesn’t want to ask for more than Patrick wants to give.

He can’t keep lying here, though. He feels like he’s going to crawl out of his skin.

Finally he gets up off the couch and goes as quietly as he can up to the room Patrick’s staying in. Erica and Jess are sharing while Patrick’s in town, to give him space of his own. Jonny figures they want him to make him want to stay as much as Jonny does.

Jonny taps lightly on the door. Then he waits, sick with nerves, long enough that he’s decided there isn’t going to be an answer—and then finally the door opens, Patrick on the other side.

He looks like he was asleep, or most of the way there. Jonny immediately feels like he made a mistake. Then Patrick says, “Thank God,” and pulls him in by his shirt front.

It doesn’t feel like last night at all. There’s no hesitation. They’re on each other right away, kissing, hungry, overbalancing and falling onto the bed.

“Sh, sh,” Patrick says into Jonny’s mouth, and Jonny says, “Have you done this before?”

He’s not sure why he asks—he already pretty much knows the answer—but Patrick shakes his head, and a new tenderness blooms in Jonny’s chest. He’d like to say there’s no possessiveness in it, but he knows himself too well for that. Mostly, though, it’s the breathless feeling of needing to give Patrick this thing he’s never had before. All those years locked behind a gate, no one to touch him the way he wanted to be touched, and now Jonny can do that.

Patrick’s already pushing up against him, his hips rising like he can’t help but seek out friction. His mouth is open, gasping for air even while he tries to kiss Jonny, his cheeks hot to the touch and his eyelids fluttering shut and Jonny loves him; he loves him.

He wants to take his time with him. Patrick deserves someone taking his time. But they’re both wound so tightly already. Patrick especially: he’s moving against Jonny, making these helpless little whimpering sounds.

“I wish we had more time,” Jonny whispers into Patrick’s ear, his breath hot and panting out as he rolls his hips against Patrick’s, their hard cocks rubbing through their sweats and making fireworks go off. “I want to make you fall apart. I want to do everything with you, fuck, I want a million years and your skin against mine, I want to pull you even closer than this—”

“God, yes, Jonny.” Patrick’s face is screwed up, his hair plastered to his forehead, and hearing his name come out of Patrick’s mouth like that makes Jonny’s stomach jolt hard. “Want you inside me so bad—”

Jonny didn’t know he was close enough to come from that. But Patrick says it, his voice strained, and Jonny doesn’t have a chance. He muffles his cry on Patrick’s shoulder and grips Patrick’s arms and spills inside his pajama pants.

He’s embarrassed about it a moment later. He’s not even a teenager anymore, for fuck’s sake. But Patrick’s squirming against him, gasping like he’s in pain, and as soon as Jonny gets it together enough to put a hand on his cock he goes rigid and comes in Jonny’s palm.

Jonny gulps air and holds onto Patrick and feels like he got punched in the gut. He’s had a decent amount of sex in his life—not the most out of anyone he knows, but not a small amount, either. He’s had bad sex and mediocre sex and great sex, definitely sex that lasted a lot longer than what they just did, but he’s never felt shattered like this afterward. Like if he doesn’t hold onto Patrick the pieces of him will fly apart.

“Jonny,” Patrick whispers, and Jonny presses his nose to Patrick’s cheek. Kisses the jawline rough with stubble. Wants to eat him, take him inside so fully that they’ll never be apart.

“I’ve thought about that a lot,” Patrick mumbles. “You fucking me.”

A shiver passes over Jonny’s skin. His cock tries to twitch. “Yeah?”

“Would fuck myself on a dildo,” Patrick says. He sounds embarrassed. “Imagine it was you.”

Jonny gives a shaky laugh, halfway to a groan. “Surprised your dad let you have a dildo.”

“He was trying to make me stay,” Patrick says. “He knew better than to deny me sex toys.”

Jonny wraps his arms around Patrick more fully, tucks his head into Patrick’s neck. He feels like they’re standing exposed—like they’re on the ice, and someone’s about to come and land a hit on Patrick. A bad hit. The kind you don’t get back up from. Jonny can try to surround him well enough to block it off, but he can’t succeed.

“I can’t believe I have to leave,” he whispers.

Patrick shudders in his arms. He doesn’t tell Jonny to stay. They both know the limitations here. But he does nudge his mouth over to Jonny’s, and Jonny kisses him back. Kisses him until he forgets how badly it’s going to hurt in the morning.

***

Jonny’s not sure he manages to say a single coherent sentence to anyone after he drags himself out of Patrick’s bed at the crack of dawn the next day. There’s something hard and painful in his throat, and if he opens his mouth to let it out he’s going to fall apart.

Erica drives him to the airport. Patrick comes along, he and Jonny both sitting in the backseat, terrible manners but no one says anything. Patrick leans against him, and Jonny tries desperately to stay above this thing that is rising inside him.

They get to the airport too quickly. Jonny isn’t ready. He’s breathing fast, trying not to let sound out, as he climbs out of the car.

Patrick climbs out after him. Jonny wants to say something. To say this can’t be the end. But there was a reason he told him to stay. Whatever they might be someday, they can’t be it right now—even if there’s sharp panic stabbing Jonny’s chest at the thought of getting on that plane and flying away.

He puts his arms around Patrick and doesn’t say anything. Patrick makes a noise into his shoulder, and Jonny feels the knot in his throat get larger. He tips Patrick’s face up and kisses him.

He kisses him for a long time. Screw people with camera phones. Screw Erica in the car just behind them. Screw his plane that’s about to start boarding. He kisses Patrick.

He can’t kiss Patrick forever, though. Eventually they have to let their mouths come apart. Patrick’s lashes are wet, and Jonny kisses the thin skin under his eyes. “I’ll miss you,” he says, and he can feel Patrick’s eyes on him all the way into the airport.

***

Jonny goes to practice feeling like his whole body is bruised. Which is really fucking bad, when he’s trying to play his own way and resist the pull of Patrick’s power on his hands and arms and legs. He could just give into it, but—he’s not Tiki. He doesn’t want to play on Patrick’s power. Especially not now.

“Whoa, Toes, thought we were supposed come back rested,” Sharpy says after Jonny struggles through a drill. “You party it up a little too hard this week?”

“No, I was just—with my family,” Jonny says, remembering his story at the last minute. He doesn’t want anything contradictory getting back to Tiki.

He’s not expecting to see Tiki at the rink today. He’s out with the so-called shoulder injury that took him out of the all-star game. So Jonny’s surprised when he’s stripping off his pads and hears Steeger say, “Hey, Tiki, how’s it going?”

Jonny snaps his head up. Tiki’s in the hallway by the trainers’ rooms, in his street clothes with a sling on his arm. After a week of spending time with Patrick almost constantly, Jonny’s struck by both the similarities and the differences. The way Tiki stands is just similar enough to Patrick to be creepy in its differences. Like looking at a blurred photograph. Something gone wrong.

It turns Jonny’s stomach to look at him. But at least if he’s here, it means he’s not with Patrick.

“Just here to see the trainers,” Tiki says, throwing Steeger a grin. “Wanna get back out on the ice with you guys as soon as I can.”

_Won’t be that soon,_ Jonny thinks meanly. It’s a terrible thing to wish on any teammate, but he’s not about to take it back. He hopes it’s a very long time before Tiki has access to Patrick again.

“Oh, hey,” Seabs calls over. “Did you ever find your kid?”

Jonny’s hands falter on his gear. He ducks his head. Hopes Tiki doesn’t look over at him.

“Oh, yeah,” Tiki says, voice easy. “We found him. Wasn’t a big deal.”

_Liar,_ Jonny thinks. He sneaks a glance—and finds Tiki looking straight at him.

“Yeah,” Tiki says again. There’s a ghost of a smile lurking around his mouth, eyes still on Jonny. “Wasn’t a problem.”

Jonny’s heart is beating in his throat. The way Tiki’s looking at him—Jonny has that feeling again, the one where he isn’t covering Patrick well enough, and he’s about to be sent crashing to the ice.

***

Jonny goes home and goes straight to his computer. He wasn’t planning on messaging Patrick this soon. He can still feel the ache of Patrick’s body against his with every breath, and he can’t handle talking to him like everything’s fine. He has to warn Patrick about this, though.

Patrick’s gchat light is green. Jonny feels the familiar old leap of adrenaline at seeing it, even though it can’t mean what it used to.

He hesitates for a minute, then sends, _hey, sorry to bug you. but i think your dad knows something_

_why? what happened?_ Patrick asks right away.

It’s fucked up that Jonny still gets a jolt out of how fast Patrick replies, even when it’s about something like this. _nothing for sure. just, he was saying in the locker room that he found his kid, and then he gave me this long look_

_shit,_ Patrick says. _i’ll warn my mom and sisters_

_can you guys leave? just get out of there?_ Jonny asks. Then, _no, fuck, i forgot about your mom_

_we’ll be okay,_ Patrick says. _we’re unlisted and shit_

Jonny bites down on his lip. He doesn’t believe for a second that Tiki won’t be able to find his ex-wife’s house just because they’re unlisted. He doesn’t think Patrick believes it, either. But there’s not a lot he can do. Not from here.

_will you tell me if anything happens?_ he asks. It’s a stupid thing to ask: what is he even going to do if he knows? Tell the team, hope they’ll care about Tiki bothering his ex-wife’s family? But he has to know.

_sure,_ Patrick says, and Jonny relaxes a fractional amount. At least he won’t be sitting here wondering.

_everything else okay?_ he asks, then regrets it immediately. He can still feel the way his chest cracked open at Patrick’s kiss.

_yeah,_ Patrick says, answering Jonny’s question. _u?_

_yeah, i’m okay_ Jonny says, but it’s never been less true.

***

The next few days are a slog through normalcy. Tiki still isn’t playing, but Jonny sees him around the rink. He hasn’t gone to Buffalo. Patrick is safe.

Patrick is safe, and Jonny—Jonny is dealing. He’s not sleeping a lot, but he’s breathing okay. He’s fine.

“Toes,” Sharpy says, plopping down next to Jonny at practice a couple of days later. “This is just sad.”

“Huh?” Jonny says, startled.

“This.” Sharpy waves a hand in front of Jonny’s face. “You’re, like, a beacon of sadness for the whole team. Pretty soon our opponents are going to feel too guilty to score on us, and much as I want to win, not sure that’s the way to do it.”

Jonny flushes. “Sorry if I’ve been—”

“No, no,” Sharpy says. “Not trying to get you to apologize. What gives, man?”

He’s giving Jonny a piercing look, and much as Jonny want to be annoyed with him—it _is_ Sharpy—there’s genuine kindness behind the question. Sharpy really wants to know.

Jonny forgets, sometimes, that his team is actually made up of good people. He’s been so caught up with Tiki and what he did to Patrick that he’s lost sight of the rest of them.

“Yeah, there’s been some—not-great stuff, lately,” Jonny says to Sharpy. “It’s okay. I’ll get over it.”

Sharpy gives Jonny a skeptical look. “If you say so,” he says. “But in the meantime, come have dinner with me and Abby sometime soon, okay? Like, soon. Tomorrow, maybe.”

Jonny feels a slight unclenching of the muscles between his shoulder blades. “Sure,” he says. “I can do that.”

***

Dinner at Sharpy’s is good. Sharpy invites a few other guys—not Tiki—and Jonny’s chest still feels raw, but he notices it a little less often when the other guys are laughing around him. He still feels like shit when he leaves, but it makes him feel like there’s a way to get through this. Maybe he’ll be able to hold on, at least until something changes.

He gets home after midnight to panicked messages from Patrick on his gchat.

_jonny_, the first one says. _are you there?_ Then, _come on, fucker, tell me you’re there._ Then a gap of like five minutes, and, _what the fuck. come on, man, you gotta be there. tell me you’re okay._ Then a final gap of ten minutes, and just, _fuck.___

_ _Jonny types an answer right away, fingers stumbling over the keys. _i'm here. sorry, was at dinner at sharpy’s. what is it?__ _

_ _There’s no answer—duh: Patrick’s dot is gray. He’s not online. He probably won’t even see Jonny’s messages except in an email._ _

_ _It’s super late. Late enough that Jonny shouldn’t call the Kane home, especially with Donna needing rest. But he’s gonna call anyway._ _

_ _He gets as far as opening the calling app on his phone before he remembers he doesn’t have their number. He never needed it when he was staying with them. He Googles them, but they’re not listed. Of course they’re not: Patrick said that, didn’t he?_ _

_ _Erica, though. He has her cell number._ _

_ _Her phone rings five times before going to voicemail. Jonny leaves a message, trying not to sound as worried as he is. He knows he’s probably overreacting—Patrick would have said if it was something really bad. But he can’t help but imagine worst-case scenarios._ _

_ _Jonny hangs up and grips the phone tight and forces himself to take a few deep breaths. He still doesn’t know anything bad is happening. He sends Erica a text, just saying again what he said in the voicemail, and then—well, there’s nothing he can really do except go to bed and hope to hear from someone in the morning._ _

_ _He doesn’t get a lot of sleep that night. He feels like there’s more he should be doing—but what’s he gonna do, fly to Buffalo at one in the morning? Call the police and tell them he has a feeling something’s happening at a house a time zone away? He’d be laughed off the phone._ _

_ _He wakes early the next morning, groggy and sore, and there’s nothing from Patrick or Erica on his phone or on gchat. It’s early, though. He goes to practice, skates his best on like three hours of sleep, and goes home and checks gchat. Still nothing._ _

_ _Okay. He’s starting to be a little more seriously concerned here._ _

_ _He googles flights to Buffalo while he contemplates how much of an idiot he’d look like if he showed up at Patrick’s door on the strength of a few ambiguous messages. A pretty big one, probably—but does he really care at this point?_ _

_ _He’s comparing fares, wondering how fast he can get to the airport when there’s a ping from gchat._ _

_ _He knocks the mouse off the table in his haste to switch browser tabs. The message is from Patrick: _sorry, was just freaking out about something. not a big deal,_ it says._ _

_ _Jonny has to read it a few times before he’s willing to believe it. It seems too good to be true. _are you sure?_ he says. _you seemed really freaked out__ _

_ _ _yah. was just going to tell you i’m back now._ _ _

_ _Jonny blinks, sitting up straighter. _wait, back like in chicago?__ _

_ _ _yeah, i got in last night._ _ _

_ _Jonny stares at the message, blood pounding in his temples. There’s a part of him that can’t help but be happy Patrick is back—but this is bad. This is really, really bad. _what happened?__ _

_ _ _it’s a long story. can you come over?_ _ _

_ _Even if Jonny had important plans for the afternoon, he’d write them off immediately. _be there as soon as I can,_ he says._ _

_ _He tries to stay chill on the drive over. He wants to know what’s going on—what was Patrick thinking? Did he just go back to Tiki, decide to imprison himself again? Why would he do that? And why didn’t he tell Jonny?_ _

_ _That last part isn’t really fair. Patrick doesn’t have to tell Jonny what he’s planning. But Jonny can’t help but be a little hurt that he didn’t tell him he was coming back to Chicago._ _

_ _That’s not important right now. Jonny just needs to listen to Patrick, hear him out, not get mad at him about his choices. He has to trust that he’ll understand more soon._ _

_ _The gate opens with the same code as before. It’s crazy that it’s only been a few weeks since Jonny was last here; it feels like so much has changed. It feels like it’s been months since he last parked his car in the circle and crossed the frozen grass toward the rink._ _

_ _Toward Patrick. It might feel like a long time since Jonny was last here, but one thing is the same: he’s going to see Patrick again._ _

_ _Jonny’s halfway across the grass before he realizes that he’s not hearing the normal rink sounds. That makes sense; Patrick just got back from traveling, and he wants to talk to Jonny, not play with him._ _

_ _Jonny drops his gear by the rink and goes into the house through the kitchen. Probably he should double back to the front door and ring the doorbell. But he’s anxious to see Patrick now, and Patrick isn’t actually going to care which door he comes in through. Jonny knocks a little as he comes in and calls out, “Hello? Patrick?”_ _

_ _There’s no answer. Patrick could be upstairs, though. He might not have expected Jonny to have driven here as fast as he did. Jonny goes further into the house, feeling a little guilty about coming so far in without an invitation. “Patrick? Are you here?”_ _

_ _His phone beeps as he reaches the staircase in the foyer. Jonny pulls it out—Erica, finally texting him back—and as he does, he catches movement out of the corner of his eye. He turns to look, and the next moment something hard and cold closes around his wrist._ _

_ _Jonny yanks his wrist back automatically. But it doesn’t go very far. He looks up to see Tiki regarding him coolly, a few feet away._ _

_ _“What the fuck,” Jonny says. His wrist is caught in half a pair of handcuffs, the other half around the thick strut at the base of the banister. He pulls, instinctively, but there’s no give._ _

_ _Tiki contemplates Jonny like he’s an interesting specimen. “You know, I should have known it was you from the start.”_ _

_ _“What are you, a fucking psycho?” Jonny asks._ _

_ _“I knew it was something,” Tiki says. He leans back against the wall, out of Jonny’s reach. “Sometime around the new year, something changed. I thought that bitch Donna was telling him things again. Should have known it was someone closer to home.”_ _

_ _Jonny recognizes that look on his face, all of a sudden. It’s the one he gets sometimes in the locker room, when he seems removed from the buzz of conversation happening around him. Like he’s studying them all. Jonny’s heart starts beating faster, real fear mixing into his first startled response. “What the fuck are you trying to do here?”_ _

_ _“I could ask you the same question,” Tiki says. “What are you doing, coming to my house and sneaking around with my son?”_ _

_ _Jonny feels himself flush from his neck to the roots of his hair. He can’t help thinking about what he and Patrick did in Buffalo—but Tiki can’t possibly know about that. And even if he did, Jonny’s not the one with something to be ashamed of here._ _

_ _“You had no right to do to Patrick what you were doing,” Jonny says. “You had no right to keep him locked up here.”_ _

_ _“He’s my son,” Tiki says. “I can do whatever I like with him.”_ _

_ _“He’s not a piece of fucking property,” Jonny says. “He’s a person. He deserves to make his own decisions. You should be encouraging him, not—keeping him shut up here and telling him lies about how the world will hurt him just so you can hang onto your pathetic fake career.”_ _

_ _“The real question,” Tiki says, like he didn’t hear any of that, “is what _you’ve_ been trying to get out of him. I don’t think the League will be happy to hear about this.”_ _

_ _Jonny jerks against the handcuffs, metal digging into his wrist. “What’s that supposed to mean?”_ _

_ _“A player who comes to another player’s house in secret and spends time alone with his mentally disturbed son, against the father’s wishes?” Tiki says. “Seems like it’s worth wondering what his motives are.”_ _

_ _“Patrick’s not mentally disturbed,” Jonny says._ _

_ _“I have statements from licensed psychologists attesting otherwise.” Tiki smirks. “Did you know he thinks he has magical powers?”_ _

_ _All Jonny wants in that moment is to be close enough to punch him in the face. “You piece of fucking horseshit.”_ _

_ _“Someone like that—he could be easy prey for a person with, what should we call it? Deviant interests.” The gleam in Tiki’s eyes is hard. “Wouldn’t want the League to find out about that.”_ _

_ _“You’re a sick fuck,” Jonny says. “What are you trying to do, blackmail me? I’m not going to help you get Patrick back.”_ _

_ _“I don’t need you to help me get Patrick back,” Tiki says. “I just need you as bait.”_ _

_ _“What?”_ _

_ _“Apparently you’ve made an impression on Patrick,” Tiki says. “No surprise, when I see how much you’ve talked the last few months. _Very_ interesting gchat history.”_ _

_ _Jonny feels his face burn again, this time a mix of rage and embarrassment. The idea of Tiki reading what they said to each other—_ _

_ _“Although, maybe not that big an impression,” Tiki says. “He didn’t seem willing to come here yesterday when I told him I had you. Seems like he didn’t care enough to take it on faith.”_ _

_ _The messages yesterday from Patrick. And then Jonny didn’t respond, and Patrick must have thought—_ _

_ _“I’m thinking this will work better.” Tiki raises a camera phone and snaps a picture of Jonny, handcuffed to the banister._ _

_ _“What the fuck are you planning?” Fear is pricking at him, but Jonny tries to push it down. He can’t panic now. “You can’t just keep me here forever. I’m not going to let you get away with this.”_ _

_ _“That’s why I’m hoping you’ll consider how things will look to the League,” Tiki says. “In fact, I’m thinking you should write out a confession.”_ _

_ _Jonny chokes on rage. “I’m not confessing to shit.”_ _

_ _“You might want to rethink that,” Tiki says. “Patrick will be on a plane as soon as he gets these pictures. What do you think I could do to him, once he’s back in reach?”_ _

_ _“Better decide fast,” Patrick’s voice says from across the room._ _

_ _Jonny whirls around in horror. Patrick’s standing there, glittering with rage._ _

_ _Tiki moves faster than Jonny expected. Patrick’s barely spoken when Tiki’s crouched beside Jonny, something hard and sharp pressing against his ankle. “Don’t move,” Tiki says to Patrick, “or I cut his Achilles’.”_ _

_ _“Jonny,” Patrick says, eyes going wide._ _

_ _“Get out of here,” Jonny says. He can feel the edge of the blade, sharp enough to push through skin with a little more pressure. Could he kick Tiki away before he managed to cut? Maybe. Maybe not. “Don’t worry about me. Get yourself safe.”_ _

_ _“Stay back,” Tiki says to Patrick. “Move away from the door.”_ _

_ _Patrick’s eyes are on Tiki, and now Jonny can see that they’re glittering because of the unshed tears in them. “You said you wanted to keep me safe,” Patrick says. “You said—you were protecting me from the people who would hurt me.”_ _

_ _“People like him,” Tiki says. “He’s only going to hurt you.”_ _

_ _“He’s _not_,” Patrick says. “Jonny’s good. He—he would never hurt me.”_ _

_ _“He’s just using you,” Tiki says. “He told me so himself, before you showed up. He told me all about how he’s been playing you for months, getting in good with you so you’ll use your power on him.”_ _

_ _“Bullshit,” Jonny says._ _

_ _Patrick’s eyes stay on Tiki, but there’s a long pause before he speaks. “That’s not true.”_ _

_ _“He was pretty eager to talk about it,” Tiki says. “Said it was a huge pain, listening to you talk, pretending to like it. But it would be worth it, once you let him—”_ _

_ _“Shut up!” Patrick says._ _

_ _Jonny clenches his fist in the cuff. “Patrick, that’s not—”_ _

_ _“Look,” Tiki says loudly, moving away from Jonny so swiftly Jonny doesn’t have a chance to try anything. “I’m sorry to tell you this. I never want anything to hurt you. But it’s important that you realize. It will never be safe for you to make friends with anyone from the outside world—especially a hockey player. They’re always going to want to use you.” Tiki holds his hands out to Patrick, palms out, like he’s offering something. “I’m the only one you can trust. The only one who wants you to be safe.”_ _

_ _Patrick hesitates. He stands looking at Tiki, looking at his hands._ _

_ _“Patrick,” Jonny says, panic rising in his chest. “You can’t believe him. I never wanted to—”_ _

_ _“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” Patrick asks Tiki._ _

_ _“I’m your father,” Tiki says. “Who can you trust if you don’t trust me?”_ _

_ _His hands are still out. Jonny realizes that he’s looking for Patrick to take them—to use his powers on him again. “Don’t trust him,” Jonny says. “Patrick. You can’t.”_ _

_ _Patrick doesn’t look over at him. “It’s true?” he asks his father. “Jonny said he was going to use me?”_ _

_ _“Of course,” Tiki says. “That’s why I brought him here—I had to get him to confess what he was doing to you.”_ _

_ _Jonny’s straining against his handcuff so hard he can feel the pressure on the bones of his wrist. “Patrick—”_ _

_ _“I’m your father,” Tiki says, low, gentle. “You know I only want what’s best for you.”_ _

_ _He’s good. Jonny knows how much of a lie it is, and he still almost believes it. “All right,” Patrick says, voice small, and Tiki smiles and moves toward him, while Jonny pulls helplessly against unyielding steel. Tiki reaches him, hands still out—and Patrick swings an arm around, the stone in his fist connecting with Tiki’s face._ _

_ _“Liar,” Patrick shouts, as Tiki falls back, clutching his nose and yelling. “_Jonny loves me._”_ _

_ _“You son of a bitch,” Tiki says. “I’m going to destroy you for this.”_ _

_ _“You kept me locked up here for _years_,” Patrick says. The tears are spilling out of his eyes. “You told me it was for me but it was really for you. Jonny—Jonny let me _go_.”_ _

_ _“I’ll destroy both of you,” Tiki says. He’s holding the knife in his hand again—it’s just a pocketknife, but Jonny remembers how sharp that blade was. “You’ll never play again. You—”_ _

_ _There’s a banging on the door. Everyone freezes._ _

_ _“This is the police,” a voice says, amplified. “Open up.”_ _

_ _Tiki’s face is purple as he rounds on Patrick again. “You called the police?”_ _

_ _“You’re never doing this to me again,” Patrick says._ _

_ _Tiki lunges at him. Jonny shouts and jerks forward, but he’s brought up short by the handcuff again. Tiki makes for Patrick like he would for the goal, puck on his stick for one of his patented breakaways._ _

_ _But he hasn’t gotten a dose of Patrick’s magic in a while now. He’s slower than usual, and Patrick is just as fast as he’s always been. He dodges to the side just in time and puts out his foot so that Tiki sprawls across the tile of the foyer. His faux-injured shoulder crashes into the wall just as the door bursts open, and half a dozen police officers pour in._ _

_ _“Help!” Tiki cries out. “He attacked me.”_ _

_ _The police fan out, surrounding both Patrick and Tiki. A couple of them go to check the surroundings, talking into radios._ _

_ _“Officers, thank you so much for coming,” Tiki says. “My son is seriously disturbed. He thinks I’m attacking him.”_ _

_ _“You did attack me,” Patrick says._ _

_ _Tiki gives a chuckle. “Like I said. Please, be gentle with him. He’s going to tell you stories, about magical powers—”_ _

_ _“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Patrick says. His voice is cold. “I’m the one who called you,” he says to the police, standing straight. “My father assaulted me and held my friend captive. He’s been abusing me for years, and I’d like to press charges.”_ _

_ _***_ _

_ _Jonny doesn’t get to hear Patrick’s statement. He has to give a statement of his own: what happened today, and then what he knows of Patrick’s life with his father over the past months. The police listen and ask at the end if he wants to press charges for the assault._ _

_ _“Yes,” he says, looking across at Tiki, who’s handcuffed to the police car, mouth pressed tight. “I would.”_ _

_ _Patrick’s statement takes longer than Jonny’s. Jonny goes and hovers outside where he’s being interviewed, in the living room of the pool house. He keeps glancing inside hoping Patrick will meet his eye, but Patrick seems intent on what he’s saying._ _

_ _What Patrick’s doing is important, Jonny knows. But he wishes that Patrick would turn and look at him, just once. There’s a part of him that’s afraid they’ll take Patrick in to the station, that Jonny won’t be able to follow, that Patrick will slip from his grasp—but Patrick isn’t a thing to be grasped. He’s a person, and if he wants to be with Jonny, he’ll make that choice on his own._ _

_ _Jonny can’t keep himself from hovering near the door, though. He can’t hear what they’re saying, nothing beyond the murmur of their voices, but he hears when they start wrapping up, moving chairs back and coming toward the door. “Do you have somewhere to stay?” the police officer asks Patrick, and Jonny braces himself as Patrick moves into view and finally, finally, looks out and meets Jonny’s eyes._ _

_ _It’s the first time they’ve properly made eye contact since Patrick showed up in the foyer. Jonny’s hit with wave of relief: the connection is still there. Whatever was between them in Buffalo, it hasn’t gone away._ _

_ _“Yeah,” Patrick says to the police officer. “I—I think I do.”_ _

_ _Jonny keeps his eyes as Patrick as he walks to the door. It seems to take a really long time. Then he’s past it, and walking into Jonny’s arms, and Jonny gets to hug him as tight as he’s been dying to. “I’m so fucking sorry,” Jonny whispers, and Patrick pulls back, steel in his eyes, and says, “Take me home.”_ _

_ _***_ _

_ _Jonny sets up Patrick in the guest room. Not that he doesn’t want Patrick in his room, but he figures Patrick needs a space of his own after the shit he’s been through._ _

_ _He’s actually not sure what’s happening between them, now. Patrick chose to come home with Jonny, but Jonny’s the only person Patrick knows, aside from his family. The only person in Chicago. Patrick obviously wanted what they did in Buffalo, but everything’s different now._ _

_ _Maybe Jonny was just what Patrick needed to get himself free._ _

_ _If that’s true, Jonny has to figure out a way to live with it. So he puts the bag Patrick packed in the guest room, and makes them dinner, and doesn’t pull Patrick close while he waits for it to cook. Patrick seems distracted anyway, his face shadowed since he got off the phone with his mom and sisters._ _

_ _“He’ll be convicted,” Jonny says when the silence starts to feels like too much._ _

_ _Patrick laughs darkly. “He’ll trot out all those statements from psychiatrists. He used to talk about them all the time. Anytime I thought I wanted to leave—he’d tell me how I was disturbed in the head. How I wasn’t strong enough to be on my own.”_ _

_ _Jonny’s not sure anything can express how much he hates Patrick’s father. “We’ll get you a _really_ good lawyer,” he says, jaw clenched tight._ _

_ _Patrick’s laugh is a little lighter this time. He meets Jonny’s eyes. “Thanks,” he says, like he’s not just talking about the lawyer thing, and Jonny swallows down the question that wants to rise to his tongue._ _

_ _He shows Patrick where the towels are and how to work his guest shower and then he doesn’t have any reason to hang out in Patrick’s room anymore. He hovers for a moment anyway, because he can’t bear the idea of leaving just yet._ _

_ _Patrick casts a look at him—a hesitant look, eyes darting quickly away. “I’m not sure if, uh,” he says. “I mean—sorry.”_ _

_ _“What?” Jonny says, foolish hope crackling to life in his chest._ _

_ _“No. I just.” Patrick shifts his weight. “Well, I was wondering if you put me in a different room because—well.”_ _

_ _“Oh. No,” Jonny says, face flushing hot. “No, it was just—you’ve had a lot of—um. I didn’t want to make you feel like you don’t have any, uh. Choices,” he finishes, mumbling._ _

_ _“Oh,” Patrick says, surprised. “No. If I have a choice, then—ugh.” He shoots Jonny a look, a smile flickering on his mouth. “Don’t make me say it, asshole.”_ _

_ _Jonny’s skin feels too tight, like he’s about to explode out of it. “You should probably say it.”_ _

_ _Patrick sighs, but he’s grinning. He comes to stand in front of Jonny and puts his hands around Jonny’s neck. “Obviously, I choose you.” His eyes are sparkling. “Dickwad.”_ _

_ _Jonny laughs, relief bubbling over, and puts his hands on Patrick’s waist. “How did you end up such a smartass when you never had anyone to talk to?” he murmurs, dipping his head close to Patrick’s._ _

_ _Patrick’s intake of breath lights Jonny’s whole throat and chest on fire. “Must be natural talent,” he says, and lifts his mouth to capture Jonny’s._ _

_ _Patrick’s body, when Jonny tips him onto the bed, feels even better than he remembered. Patrick’s gasps cut to the bottom of his gut, and when Jonny kisses him until they can’t breathe, it’s even better than it was before, because now it’s for keeps. Now they get to hold onto this._ _

_ _There’s still tough shit coming. There’ll be a trial, and all the media madness around it. The team probably won’t be thrilled with Jonny’s role in it, even if they end up taking his side. And Patrick’s going to have to take the stand and drag his whole childhood into the light, all the humiliations and the abuses and the things he’s never wanted anyone else to hear. Before today, Jonny might have questioned whether Patrick was strong enough to deal with it all. Now he doesn’t have any doubts._ _

_ _And there’ll be good things, too. Jonny’s already thinking he should have Patrick’s mom and sisters come to visit. Maybe go up to Winnipeg once the season’s over. And Jonny’s pretty sure the team will forgive him for costing them Tiki once their amateur talent scout gets a look at Patrick. Which means training, and a million phone calls, and Jonny hasn’t even told his agent any of this has happening—_ _

_ _But before all that. Before they have to face the world, they can just be here: together in this bed, Patrick’s body flushed and eager against his, this thing Jonny thought he would never have again._ _

_ _“You said before,” Jonny whispers, sliding his hands down to Patrick’s ass and feeling him shudder. “You don’t have to, but, uh, you said—”_ _

_ _“Yes,” Patrick says. “Yes, and yes, and yes,” and Jonny kisses him, dizzy with the knowledge that Patrick is free, and Patrick is safe, and Patrick is choosing him._ _


End file.
